Marianne Welmers

Therapists’ Contributions to the Alliance 81 CHAPTER 3 Model 1 β Model 2 β Model 3 β Model 4 β Model 5 β Model 6 β -.134 -.121 -.149* -.154* -.062 -.045 -.180* -.361*** -.338** -.189* -.161 + .694*** .752*** .689*** .425*** .404*** .279** .149 .057 .001 -.055 -.141 + -.243*** -.264*** -.258** -.321** -.211** -.196** .193* .265** .207** .202* .264** .304** .203** .181* -.029 -.026 -.128** -.169* .110 .299*** .305** .226** .220*** .237*** -.219 + -.162 + -.198 + .467*** .464*** .083 .030 .006 -0.152*** 41.961*** 9.286 3.422 41.685*** -8.975*** -0.152*** 41.809*** 51.095*** 54.517*** 96.202*** 87.227*** Our finding that therapists’ personality traits predicted alliance was mostly in line with our hypotheses. As hypothesized, we found that both therapists and family members reported stronger allianceswhen therapistsweremore agreeable and open to experience . This is in contrast with findings of Chapman et al. (2009) in individual psychotherapy, indicating that more openness to experience was associated with less positive client- reports of the alliance, and that more agreeable trainees in their sample reported on weaker alliances themselves. The authors reason that, given the high levels of openness and agreeableness in their trainee sample, it seems plausible that only extreme levels of these traits did negatively influence the alliance. In our sample however, therapists also reported their levels of openness to be somewhat higher, and their levels of agreeableness a standard deviation higher than that of the general Dutch population. This indicates that even extremely agreeable and open therapists may be more successful