Psicothema 2004. Vol. 16, n 4, pp.

702-705
www.psicothema.com

ISSN 0214 - 9915 CODEN PSOTEG

Copyright 2004 Psicothema

Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Working Alliance

Theory of Change Inventory (WATOCI)
Sergi Corbella and Luis Botella
FPCEE Blanquerna, Universidad Ramn Llull

This Brief Report presents a study of the psychometric qualities of the Working Alliance Theory of
Change Inventory (Spanish version). WATOCIs reliability coefficient based on the internal consistency is good. Results seem to suggest (a) that the theoretical structure of the instrument should be
further refined, and (b) that therapeutic alliance may be a more unified construct than is usually
thought of. While it is theoretically possible to divide it into different components, clinical research
with psychotherapy patients seems to indicate that goals, tasks, bond and theory of change are closely related.
Caractersticas psicomtricas de la versin espaola del inventario de la alianza teraputica y teora
del cambio. Este artculo presenta un estudio de las caractersticas psicomtricas de la versin espaola del Inventario de Alianza Teraputica y Teora del Cambio (WATOCI). La estimacin del coeficiente
de fiabilidad basada en la consistencia interna de la versin espaola del WATOCI se demostr buena.
Los resultados parecen sugerir: (a) que la estructura teorica del instrumento debe ser revisada y refinada a fondo, y (b) que la alianza teraputica puede ser un constructo ms unificado. Tericamente es
posible diferenciar entre las subescalas de la alianza teraputica, pero los datos indican que los tems
de las subescalas de objetivos, tareas, vnculo positivo y teora del cambio estn muy asociados.

Psychotherapy could not be conceived without the existence of

a client-therapist relationship. The therapeutic meeting between patient and practitioner plays an essential role in the psychotherapeutic process. Psychotherapy researchers rate the relative contribution
of relationship factors as accounting for 30% of the total change
that patients make (Lambert, 1992). Therapeutic alliance has been
identified as the main factor contributing to such psychotherapeutic relationship. Horvath and Greenberg (1994) explain that in the
current notion of working alliance, collaboration between therapist and client is the key element. At its best, the working alliance
provides a safe environment for clients to explore themselves and
a relationship in which clients key relational issues are defined.
The role of therapeutic alliance in promoting and facilitating therapeutic change was initially highlighted by psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists (for a review, see Bordin, 1994), but is
nowadays acknowledged by most theoretical approaches. Bordin
(1979) defined the working alliance as consisting of three components: agreement on overall goals, agreement on tasks that lead towards achieving these goals, and emotional bond between the therapist and client.
Thus, the construction and validation of scales and inventories
designed to assess key dimensions of effective therapeutic relationships has been one of the goals of psychotherapy researchers in re-

Fecha recepcin: 5-5-03 Fecha aceptacin: 20-5-04

Correspondencia: Sergi Corbella
FPCEE Blanquerna
Universidad Ramn Llull
08022 Barcelona (Spain)
E-mail: sergics@blanquerna.url.es

cent decades. One of these questionnaires is the Working Alliance

Theory of Change Inventory (WATOCI; Duncan and Miller, 1999).
The Working Alliance Inventory was developed by Horvath and
Greenberg (1989). It is a self-report measure consisting of 36
items and three subscales of 12 items each representing three dimensions of working alliance (Bond, Goals, Tasks). A counselor
and a client form are used to collect information regarding the reported strength of the working alliance. Horvath and Greenberg
(1986) reported internal consistency estimates with alphas of .93
for the client total score and .87 for the therapist total score. The
internal consistencies for the client sub-scales were reported as alphas of of .90, .88, and .91 for task, bond, and goal respectively. It
was also found to have good convergent and divergent validity using a multitrait-multimethod analysis. The original 36-item WAI is
also available in a short form version (WAI-S), comprised of 12
items (Tracey and Kokotovic, 1989).
The WATOCI is a 17-item pencil and paper version of the wellestablished Working Alliance Inventory (WAI). The WAI (short
version, Tracey and Kokotovic, 1989) was developed and validated in relation to Bordins transtheoretical model of alliance (Bordin, 1994)see Horvath and Greenberg (1986) for further information regarding the validation of the WAI. The shortened version
of the WAI is a 12-item self-report measure that uses a 7-point
Likert rating scale (1= never, 7= always) to yield both an overall
score for alliance quality and three summed sub-scale scores (4
items per each sub-scale in the WAI short version):
(1) Bond: the emotional bond of trust and attachment between
patient and therapist. Some of the facilitative conditions
that help to create such a bond are: mutual understanding

PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE SPANISH VERSION OF THE WORKING ALLIANCE THEORY OF CHANGE INVENTORY (WATOCI)

between patient and therapist, a caring attitude on the therapists side, and the patients perception that the therapist
likes him or her.
(2) Goals: the degree of agreement concerning the overall
goals of treatment. Thus, the client is aware that such goals
are relevant and he or she identifies him or herlself with
the themes made explicit and implicit during the therapeutic process. The therapist has some direct or indirect evidence that the goals established in the therapeutic relationship are shared with and accepted by the client.
(3) Tasks: the degree of agreement concerning the tasks relevant for achieving these goals. Both therapist and client feel
that the tasks agreed upon during the therapeutic process are
rational, reachable, and closely related to the therapeutic
goals (Horvath and Greenberg, 1986).
Tracey and Kokotovics (1989) factor analysis of the WAI yielded an alliance overall main factor and three other factors that accounted for the three alliance sub-scales. The WAI-S (short version) derived from this study and it yielded a Chronbachs alpha of
.94. In the same study, the internal consistency reliabilities were
.90, .84 and .88 for task, bond and goal scores, respectively (Tracey
and Kokotovic, 1989).
Duncan and Miller (1999) added 5 items dealing with the
agreement between patients and therapists theory of change to
the reduced version of the WAI. This brief report presents the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the WATOCI (see
Table 1).
Method
Research participants were 102 adults (79 women and 23 men)
receiving outpatient psychotherapy. The mean age for the participants was 30.0 years (SD= 8.74). Their presenting complaints
were: anxiety (41.7% of the sample); mood disorders (39.9%); and
interpersonal/relational difficulties (17.5%). All of them completed the Spanish version of the WATOCI at the end of the third psychotherapy session.
Results
Instruments coefficient of reliability based on the internal consistency assessed by Cronbachs Alpha is .93. The internal consistencies for the sub-scales were reported as alphas of .91, .85, .86,and
.0,82 for task, bond, goal, and theory of change respectively.
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and
Bartletts Test of Sphericity indicated that the factor model was
appropiate. We also performed an exploratory Principal Component Analysis (with Varimax rotation), and it extracted three factors (eigenvalues over 1) with eigenvalues of 5.66 (first factor);
2.81 (second factor); and 2.59 (third factor). The three factors account for 65% of the total variance.

703

As can be seen in Table 2, the first factor is made up by a combination of (a) all items belonging to the tasks sub-scale; (b) two
items belonging to the goals sub-scale, and (c) four items belonging
to the theory of change sub-scale. The second factor is made up by
a combination of (a) two items belonging to the goals sub-scale, and
(b) one item belonging to the theory of change sub-scale. The third
factor is made up by three of the four items belonging to the bond
sub-scale. Thus, the first factor is made up of items belonging to all
subscales, the second one is made up of some items belonging to the
goals subscale and one belonging to the theory of change subscale,
and the third one is made up of items belonging to the bond subscale.
Thus, it seems that the tasks, goals, theory of change subscales,
and one item belonging to the bond subscale account for the first
two factors, whereas three of the four items belonging to the bond
subscale account for the third factor.
Discussion
The internal consistency reliabilities for the total score, and
subscales were good and agree with Tracey and Kokotovics results (Tracey and Kokotovic, 1989).
A closer look at the Principal Component Analysis results reveals that the Spanish version of the WATOCI does not fit well
with the structure that could be expected from Bordins (1994) theory of therapeutic alliance. Factors obtained in the analysis do not
discriminate between items belonging to different subscales; items
from all subscales are attributed to the first factor, items from two
different subscales are attributed to the second one, whereas some
items in the bond subscale are attributed to the third factor.
These results seem to suggest (a) that the la theoretical structure of the instrument should be further refined, and (b) that therapeutic alliance may be a more unified construct than is usually
thought of. While it is theoretically possible to divide it into different components, clinical research with psychotherapy patients
seems to indicate that goals, tasks, bond and theory of change are
closely related and are not orthogonal factors.
Thus, the results of this study are partially in agreement with
those of the one by Tracey and Kokotovic (1989) mentioned before n which they reported finding a first factor made up of items
belonging to all subscales. Our own results validate the notion that
therapeutic alliance as assessed by the WATOCI is a coherent construct, but they also cast some doubts on the supposedly threefold
structure of such a construct. Also, Duncan and Millers (1999)
addition of the theory of change sub-scale does not add any
meaningful clarification to the structure of the previous WAI short
version.
Acknowledgements
This work was carried out while Sergi Corbella was holder of
a Grant awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture
(AP 98).

704

SERGI CORBELLA AND LUIS BOTELLA

Table 1
Spanish WATOCI
Inventario de Alianza Teraputica y Teora del Cambio (WATOCI)
(C) 1999 Barry Duncan and Scott D. Miller

Cliente:
Terapeuta:
Sesin n:
Fecha de la sesin:
Por favor, evale la sesin de hoy segn estas afirmaciones. Rodee con un crculo la puntuacin que mejor describa su opinin usando el sistema siguiente:
Nunca
1

Muy pocas veces

2

En ocasiones
3

Punto medio
4

Bastante a menudo
5

Casi siempre
6

Siempre
7

01. Mi terapeuta y yo estamos de acuerdo en lo que hay que hacer para contribuir a mejorar mi situacin.
1

02. Lo que hago en terapia me permite ver nuevas formas de considerar mi problema.
1

03. Caigo bien a mi terapeuta.

1

04. Mi terapeuta y yo tenemos ideas diferentes sobre lo que intento conseguir en la terapia.
1

05. Confo en la capacidad de mi terapeuta para ayudarme.

1

06. Mi terapeuta y yo estamos trabajando con metas que hemos acordado ambos.
1

07. Siento que mi terapeuta me aprecia.

1

08. Mi terapeuta y yo estamos de acuerdo en cules son las cosas importantes en que debera trabajar en la terapia.
1

09. Mi terapeuta y yo confiamos el uno en el otro.

1

10. Mi terapeuta y yo tenemos ideas diferentes respecto a cules son mis problemas.
1

11. Mi terapeuta y yo hemos llegado a una buena comprensin del tipo de cambios que seran buenos para m.
1

12. Creo que la forma en que estamos trabajando con mi problema es la correcta.
1

13. Mi terapeuta y yo coincidimos en cuanto a mis metas en la terapia.

1

14. Creo que lo que mi terapeuta y yo hacemos en terapia es irrelevante para mis preocupaciones.
1

15. Creo que las cosas que hago en terapia me ayudarn a conseguir los cambios que deseo.
1

16. Las cosas que mi terapeuta me pide que haga son intrascendentes o incomprensibles para m.
1

17. Las sesiones se centran en mis ideas sobre lo que ha de pasar para que se produzca un cambio.
1

PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE SPANISH VERSION OF THE WORKING ALLIANCE THEORY OF CHANGE INVENTORY (WATOCI)

705

Table 2
Principal component analysis of the Spanish WATOCI results (rotation method:
varimax with Kaiser normalization)
Components
Item number

01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

Sub-scale

Tasks
Tasks
Bond
Goals
Bond
Goals
Bond
Tasks
Bond
Goals
Goals
Tasks
Theory of Change
Theory of Change
Theory of Change
Theory of Change
Theory of Change

2
Factor Loadings

.80
.51
.23
.37
.71
.63
.32
.78
.59
.42
.69
.75
.72
.76
.64
.24
.60

.33
.38
.26
.65
.32
.26
.23
.25
.15
.53
.32
.38
.39
.73
-.25

.41
.85
.26
.36
.83
.15
.50
.14
.32
.30
.30
.31
.25
.25

Note: Values less than .1 have been omitted.

References
Bordin, E.S. (1979). The generalizability of the psychoanalytic concept of
the working alliance. Psychotherapy: Theory, research, and practice,
16, 252-260.
Bordin, E.S. (1994). Theory and research therapeutic working alliance:
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Working Alliance. Theory, Research, and Practice (pp. 13-37). New
York: Wiley.
Duncan, B.L. and Miller, S.D. (1999). Working Alliance Theory of Change
Inventory (WATOCI). Retrieved November, 20, 1999, from The Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change (ISTC) Web site:
http://www.talkingcure.com/

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