Brief Description
The Working Alliance Inventory – Short (Revised) is a 12-item self-report questionnaire that measures the quality of the therapeutic alliance, adapted from the original Working Alliance Inventory (WAI; Horvath & Greenberg, 1989). It improves on earlier short forms by refining item wording and ensuring a better fit with the three-factor alliance model. The WAI-SR is grounded in Bordin’s (1979) theory of the working alliance, which emphasizes: 1) Bond – mutual trust, acceptance, and emotional connection; 2) Goal – agreement on the aims of therapy; 3) Task – agreement on how to work toward those aims. The WAI-S provides a brief, reliable measure of alliance suitable for routine monitoring in therapy.
Assessment Administration Type
Self-report
Number of questions
12
Age Range for Administration
18+
Recommended Frequency of Administration
Weekly or as clinically indicated:
Session-by-session is useful when you want to track ruptures, dynamic changes, or see how alliance relates to immediate symptom change
Summary of Scoring and Interpretations
Each of the 12 items is rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = “Seldom” to 5 = “Always”), giving a total score range of 12 to 60, with higher scores reflecting a stronger therapeutic alliance. The measure also produces three subscale scores (Bond, Goals, Tasks), with each subscale having a score range of 4 to 20. Each subscale is calculated by summing corresponding items, as shown below.
Subscale | Items |
Tasks | 1, 2, 10, 12 |
Bond | 4, 6, 8, 11 |
Goals | 3, 5, 7, 9 |
Blueprint Adjustments
N/A
Clinical Considerations
Estimated completion time: 3-5 minutes.
Strong psychometric support across different languages, client populations, and therapy formats.
Predictive validity: alliance scores on the WAI-SR are consistently associated with therapy engagement and outcomes.
Blueprint’s library also includes the Spanish translation of the WAI-SR.
Citation
Hatcher, R. L., & Gillaspy, J. A. (2006). Development and validation of a revised short version of the Working Alliance Inventory. Psychotherapy Research, 16(1), 12–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503300500352500
Relevant Articles + Further Resources
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