Returning to the roots. A Comment on the Paper Alliance in Common Factor Land: A View through the Research Lens

In his interesting paper “Alliance in Common Factor Land: A View through the Research Lens†Horvath (2011) takes us through the critical aspects of therapeutic alliance researches and the challenges that researchers still have to face. The author discusses several complex issues from the historical background of the construct to the critical aspects of its measurement, and concluding with the proposal of a research agenda. The key topic of Horvath’s (2011) paper is the necessity for a better definition of therapeutic alliance construct, one that would (a) recognize the similarities and differences among the different kinds of therapeutic alliance definitions; and (b) differentiate the components of the therapeutic relationship.  As Horvath reminds us in his paper, the problem of differentiation between therapeutic alliance and other components of the relationship originates from Greenson’s (1965) tripartition of therapeutic relationship in transference, working alliance, and real relationship.