Marianne Welmers

Therapists’ Contributions to the Alliance 75 CHAPTER 3 Results Preliminary Analyses Table 1 shows the distribution of therapists’ alliance building behaviors. Results indicate that therapists mainly invested in engagement and emotional connection , the two individual domains of the SOFTA model. Therapist behaviors contributing to safety and shared sense of purpose , the two systemic alliance domains of the SOFTA-model, were scarcely observed. As argued above, we excluded the shared sense of purpose domain from our main analyses. Table 1 Therapists’ alliance building behaviors T1 T2 n Mean (SD) n Mean (SD) Engagement in the Therapeutic Process 54 12.4 (5.6) 45 12.3 (6.1) Emotional Connection 54 14.5 (10.0) 45 14.4 (8.5) Safety within the Therapeutic System 54 1.1 (1.4) 45 0.6 (1.1) Shared Sense of Purpose 30 0.5 (0.8) 20 0.4 (0.7) Note. Scores on SOFTA-o therapist version, number of alliance building behaviors per 60minutes. T1 = starting phase of treatment; T2 = mid-treatment. n = number of families with a score of observed therapist behaviors on the designated SOFTA domain. Table 2 shows the distribution of therapists’ scores on the NEO-FFI, as compared to a general sample of Dutch adults in the development sample of the measure (Hoekstra & De Fruyt, 2014). Therapists in our sample reported notably higher levels of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness , lower levels of neuroticism, and similar levels of openness to experience as compared to the general Dutch sample. Table 2 NEO-FFI scores Therapist Sample ( n = 29) Mean (SD) General Dutch sample 1 ( n = 1715) Mean (SD) Neuroticism 27.5 (5.1) 34.0 (7.5) Extraversion 44.0 (4.4) 39.3 (5.8) Openness to Experience 39.9 (5.2) 38.9 (5.7) Agreeableness 48.8 (4.1) 41.1 (5.6) Conscientiousness 46.7 (4.0) 43.4 (5.7) Note: 1 General sample of Dutch adults in the development sample of the measure (Hoekstra & De Fruyt, 2014).