Browsing by Author "Iso-Kokkila, Eero"

Understanding the mechanisms of change in psychotherapy is still a work in progress. More profound understanding of these mechanisms of change would provide research-based guidelines for developing psychotherapies that are more effective and efficient. Psychotherapy research has found multiple active ingredients (specific techniques, therapeutic alliance, positive expectations, etc.) but understanding the way how these elements lead to the positive therapeutic change is unknown. Mechanisms of change in psychotherapies have been attempted to establish by researching the effects of therapy-specific techniques, but the results have been incoherent. Earlier psychotherapy research has found out that common factors that exist in all forms of psychotherapy have a larger effect on effectiviness of the treatment than the specific techniques have. Especially therapeutic alliance has been noticed to be a largest single factor in effectiveness of psychotherapies. In my thesis I present The Common Factor model of psychotherapy with a focus on therapeutic alliance. I also consider the requirements for finding mechanisms of change in psychotherapy. Lastly, I outline the current research on how therapeutic alliance might play a role in mechanisms of change in psychotherapies.