PSYC 405: Creating A Working Alliance ASSIGNMENT 2 ANALYSIS OF THE
SECOND SESSION 2026 Athabasca University
Analysis of the Second Session
Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences, Athabasca University
PSYC 405: Creating A Working Alliance
Analysis of the Second Session
The purpose of this paper is to further analyze the second video session where Aaron and
I explore possible solutions to his work-related problem (Athabasca University, 2024). The
second sessions focus was to use communication skills to work through the problem-solving
model (Hiebert, 2005). This paper will explain the skills I used and how they helped build a
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working alliance with Aaron. This paper will provide context, balance and sequence,
purposefulness and flexibility and alternatives and critiques. Suggestions throughout the paper
will be made to improve weak areas.
Context and Plan for the Session
This session was used to continue to build a working alliance with Aaron. The focus of
the session was to determine a problem definition and brainstorm ideas to solve his work-related
problem (Athabasca University, 2024). I believe this session was successful as Aaron was able to
determine possible solutions that he wanted to explore further. The focus of the first session was
on developing a working alliance, and using skills to explore Aaron’s problem (Meara & Patton,
1994). In this assignment, I want to continue to develop the working alliance by using the same
communication skills, however I want to dive deeper into the work-related problem to help
Aaron with problem solving. We worked through the phases of the problem-solving model
(develop a problem-solving orientation, explore and define the problem, and generate and rank
alternatives) and started working on an action plan (Athabasca University, 2024). In the
following session we will review our solutions and the homework Aaron was going to do to see
if the solution was possible.
In this session Aaron was the client and I (Courtney) was the counsellor. We had already
established a working alliance in our previous session. The working alliance continued to build
during this session and was evident through Aaron making jokes and the agreement of tasks and
goals (Meara & Patton, 1994). I will use more reflections and summaries to help move the
conversation along and confirm my understanding of the information he provided (Hiebert,
2005). I plan to use an overview to review what we did in the previous session, summaries of the
conversation we had in each phase and transition statements to move through the phases.