Personality disorder type only sometimes matters: An exploration of patient's personality disorder as a source of variance in early therapeutic alliance.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to analyse personality disorders among patients in the early phase of psychotherapy as a source of variance in the quality of the emerging alliance.

METHODS: The sample consisted of 131 individual psychotherapy patients with borderline (BPD), narcissistic (NPD), dependent (DPD) and obsessive-compulsive (OCPD) personality disorders and 131 psychotherapists. Different sources of alliance estimation were included. Therapeutic alliance was operationalized on several dimensions. The hypothesis was tested using an independent samples one-way analysis of variance.

RESULTS: The study revealed a significant effect of personality disorder type on early therapeutic alliance quality. BPD patients rated their early alliance the lowest compared to NPD, DPD and OCPD patients. This trend was dominant and replicated regardless of who rated the alliance and which dimension of alliance was estimated.

CONCLUSIONS: NPD, DPD and OCPD patients have better initial therapeutic alliances than BPD patients, and their alliances do not differ significantly. BPD patients build weaker alliances, and what poses a challenge for them is not only developing a strong and close bond but also conceptualizing goals and reaching agreement on tasks.