title: Emotional availability in psychotherapy: the usefulness and validity of the emotional availability scales for analyzing the psychotherapeutic relationship.
abstract: The aim of this study was to assess whether a modified version of the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS), created to assess interaction quality between parents and children, could be applied to psychotherapy sessions and whether emotional availability (EA), as assessed by the modified EAS-T, was associated with client- and therapist-rated working alliance. EAS-T was used to assess 42 sessions from 16 therapies. The therapies came from the LURIPP project, comparing IPT with BRT for depressed clients. The results showed that sessions could be reliably rated with EAS-T. Most rating scales had acceptable variance. The client's perception of task alliance was associated with several of the EA subscales (sensitivity, nonhostility, responsiveness) assessed over therapies, whereas the perception of bond was associated with Structure on EAS.
authors: a Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning , Linköping University , Linköping , Sweden.
authors: Anna Karin
authors: AK
authors: Söderberg
authors: Caroline
authors: C
authors: Elfors
authors: Mattias Holmqvist
authors: MH
authors: Larsson
authors: Fredrik
authors: F
authors: Falkenström
authors: Rolf
authors: R
authors: Holmqvist
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000628:therapy*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation; D013811:Psychotherapeutic Processes; D011614:Psychotherapy, Brief; D016896:Treatment Outcome