Factors Predicting Therapeutic Alliance in Antisocial Adolescents
Therapeutic alliance is a robust predictor of future therapeutic outcomes. While treatment of normal children and adolescents is often hard, treating antisocial youth is especially difficult because of the social, cognitive, and emotional deficits experienced by these youth. This study investigated whether differing levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits influenced the formation of therapeutic alliance in a sample of 51 adjudicated youth in juvenile institutions. Also, we tested whether therapeutic alliance influenced success in the institution and whether this association differed based on levels of CU traits. Results revealed that CU traits and selfreported delinquency were both modestly related to institutional infractions. Children low on both dimensions showed the lowest levels of institutional infractions. Additionally, these findings suggest that children high on both CU traits and delinquency reported better therapeutic alliance, but that youth with high CU traits committed more institutional infractions, despite their level of therapeutic alliance.
Subtypes of conduct disorder, callous-unemotional traits, therapeutic alliance, treatment success
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