Marianne Welmers

Chapter 4 96 or “This client agrees upon what family members should do in order to improve the way things are going in the family” for the therapist version) and measures task-, goal- and bond-elements of the alliance on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from1 (never) to 5 (always). In the current sample, Cronbach’s alpha for the therapists’ version was .85 at T1 and .88 at T2, and for the clients’ version .91 at T1 and .92 at T2. System for Observing Family Therapy Alliances (SOFTA-o). The SOFTA-o (Friedlander, Escudero, & Heatherington, 2006) has been developed to asses four dimensions of alliance-related behavior from videotaped family or couple therapy sessions. Two dimensions reflect the individual alliance between a family member and the professional based on Bordin’s (1979) classical definition of the alliance, i.e., Engagement in the Therapeutic Process, representing task and goal elements of the alliance, and Emotional Connection. The two other dimensions, Safetywithin the Therapeutic System, and Shared Sense of Purpose within the Family, reflect aspects of the alliance that are unique to conjoint family treatment. When using the SOFTA-o, a trained coder observes a session and notes the frequency of specific positive and negative alliance-related behaviors along the four dimensions. Some examples for positive and negative behavioral indicators include “Client describes or discusses a plan for improving the situation” or “Client shows indifference about the tasks or process of therapy (e.g., paying lip service, “I don’t know”, tuning out)” for Engagement , “Client shares a lighthearted moment or joke with the therapist” or “Client avoids eye contact with the therapist” for Emotional Connection, “Client implies or states that therapy is a safe place” or “Client expresses anxiety nonverbally” for Safety , and “Family members ask each other for their perspective” or “Family members blame each other” for Shared Sense of Purpose. After observing the session, based on the frequency, intensity and clinical meaningfulness of the marked behaviors, coders assign global ratings on each dimension on a 7 point Likert scale ranging from -3 ( extremely problematic ) to +3 ( extremely strong ). For the purpose of this study, the SOFTA-o was translated from English to Dutch, following guidelines as prescribed by Van Widenfelt, Treffers, De Beurs, Siebelink, and Koudijs (2005). For coding the videotaped IPT-sessions with the SOFTA-o, we used the training manual by Friedlander et al. (2005) as a guideline. The first author received training fromprofessor Escudero, one of the developers of the instrument. After training and translation of the manual, she coded 12 videotapes with at least two family members in the session to use as a golden standard. Coding dilemmas were discussed with professor Escudero. Next, 3 master students of Educational Sciences of the University of Amsterdam were trained, receiving 15 hours of coder training over five weeks. They were introduced to