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Abstract:
Etiquette is about adhering to prescribed norms in social interactions, or about negotiating and making explicit interactional norms when they do not already exist. While these play a role in most realms of human interaction, the establishment of such norms has been demonstrated to be especially crucial in domains in which a person is attempting to undergo a change in behavior or cognitive or affective state. In the field of psychotherapy, the construct of working alliance has been demonstrated to have a significant correlation with outcomes across a broad range of therapies, and has been hypothesized to be the single common factor underlying the therapeutic benefit of therapies ranging from behavioral and cognitive therapies to psychodynamic therapy [6]. The working alliance is one dimension of the relationship between the therapist and patient, based on trust and belief in each other as team-members in achieving a desired outcome [4]. The working alliance has three subcomponents: a goal component (the therapist and client agree on the goals of the therapy); a task component (the therapist and client agree on the therapeutic tasks to be performed); and a bond component (reflecting the trusting, empathetic relationship between the client and therapist). The alliance is thus a change-inducing relationship in which the interactional norms (goals and tasks) have been made explicit and are understood and agreed to by both the therapist and the patient.