Therapeutic Alliance Barriers

Identify barriers to developing a therapeutic alliance that you have observed
Barrier: John has little vocabularies and doesn't comprehense everything others tell him.
Barrier: John has a short temper and can get easily frustrated with people and demonstrate a very aggressive behaviour.
Barrier: John doesn’t like noise or laud people and would rather if people whisper instead.
Identify any strengths that may be used to support the development of a therapeutic alliance that you have observed
Strength: John loves his candy treats, so it can be used to reward a targeted behaviour.
Strength: John loves to soak in the tub with the lights off and that usually calm him down.
Strength: John is in a mag-locked apartment that is safe for him, as well as for others.

Approaches used to develop a therapeutic alliance
1. Trust: John doesn’t have lots of vocabularies and even the words he says are not clear or he

As well I tried to prepare him good meals that he likes whenever I’m around and I eat my food with him too so he doesn’t feel he is excluded. As a result of all of that, John started to allow me to stay in his room for more than half hour which is huge as other staff do not stay in more than few minutes or seconds as they feel threatened by him..

2. Goal Development: John has difficulties communicating his needs and his wants, the most consistent request he asks for is a van ride to the airport. Considering John’s situation and his mag-locked apartment there is a need to fill up time with meaningful activities for him and because of the limited comprehentions and vocabularies, I started introducing new activities that can be meaningful and improve independence like collecting his laundry and put them in the laundry basket, to avoid communication barriers I’ll demonstrate to him what I’m asking of him and whenever he does it I give him a candy