Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the instruction of the therapeutic alliance in the graduate education of future speech-language pathologists.
Method: Surveys were created for graduate student clinicians and supervising clinicians consisting of three Likert scale questions and open-ended questions. T-tests were performed on the scaled questions and the open-ended questions were analyzed with thematic analysis.
Results: Graduate student clinicians reported being taught the therapeutic alliance less than clinical supervisors reported teaching it. Both populations emphasized the bond as an important aspect of the alliance with less emphasis on collaboration on goals and tasks of therapy. Modalities in which different skills were taught varied by population and skills.
Conclusion: Clinical supervisors agree that the therapeutic alliance is an important skill for students to learn and are currently implementing it in their teaching. However, the instruction of the therapeutic alliance may need to be more explicit in the future and emphasize more aspects and strategies to build an alliance.