Development and validation of a revised short version of the Working Alliance Inventory

The Working Alliance Inventory (WAI; Horvath & Greenberg, 1989) and the Working Alliance Inventory-Short (WAI- S; Tracey & Kokotovic, 1989) are widely used measures of alliance in therapy. This study evaluated the factor structure of the WAI and WAI- S with confirmatory factor analysis in two samples (Ns = 231 and 235). The hypothesized structures were not confirmed. An alternative 12-item WAI (WAI-SR), consistent with Bordin's ( 1979) model of alliance, was developed in one sample and cross-validated in the other. The WAI-SR better differentiated Goal, Task, and Bond alliance dimensions and correlated well with other alliance measures. The Task dimension was particularly salient, as expected based on Bordin's original theory. Additional psychometric properties and item response theory analysis of the WAI-SR are presented.