Mediation: An Intervention Strategy for Counselors

Conflict resolution is a rapidly expanding field, one in which counselors need to be more knowledgeable. An overview of conflict resolution and mediation concepts is presented with a comparison to therapeutic counseling interventions. Applications are provided for various areas such as family mediation, community disputes, and mediation in public education. Implications for counseling and the role of the counselor are discussed.     

Elementary School Counselors in California

The number, school location, academic preparation and experience, and functions and duties of “elementary school counselors” in California were studied. Questionnaires were answered by 175 counselors, 118 elementary school principals, and 312 teachers in schools employing counselors. The number of children in the participating schools was 133,125, or five per cent of all pupils in grades K-8 in the State. Counselors reported that they spent 50 per cent of their time working with pupils, 17 per cent with teachers, 10 per cent with administrators, 12 per cent with parents, and 11 per cent with probation, welfare, and other officials. The counselors and the principals generally agreed on the rank order of importance of the functions of elementary school counselors and on the most important skills and personality characteristics counselors should have. The teachers reported that counselors gave them most help by testing individual pupils, counseling with pupils, helping them with classroom problems, and participating in parent conferences. Elements of an ideal counseling program at the district and school level as well as deficiencies in present programs were described by the respondents.     

Person-Placement Congruence: A Framework for Vocational Counselors

A common guideline for vocational counseling is the rule requiring congruence between a man and his job. The issue of person-placement congruence was studied utilizing 159 patients referred for vocational rehabilitation to the Mental Health and Manpower Project from the Fort Logan Mental Health Center. A 13-item scale devised by project research staff and completed by vocational counselors was shown to predict later job success. By separating the scale into two categories, those items dealing with abilities and those related to needs, it was possible to predict the nature of job termination, i.e., quit or was fired. There was demonstrated considerable validity for the man-job fit approach to counseling, and this research served as an initial step toward detailing this rather simple rule.     

Managed Mental Health: A Primer for Counselors

The mental health service delivery system is experiencing a transformation attendant to rapidly developing cost containment mechanisms. This article reviews various aspects of the new managed mental health care systems and details the gains and losses the various mental health service provider professions may experience depending upon how each responds to the changing demands of alternate service delivery systems. Recommendations are presented regarding how counselors can establish a solid base in the new managed mental health care system.     

VISION: A Model of Culture for Counselors

Current and popular views of multiculturalism emphasize between-group differences attributable to race and ethnicity with little appreciation of within-group differences, the individuality of each person's phenomenal field, or an individual's capacity to participate in different groups. VISION is a model of culture that accounts for within-group and between-group differences, the disappearance of groups, and the emergence of new ones. VISION has program applications pertinent to counselor education in the areas of mental health counseling and in modeling the multicultural training of counselors. A paradigmatic shift from a group level of abstraction to the individual is commonly contemplated among cultural anthropologists, but the need for this shift is illustrated in a counseling context.     

Behavior Therapy: A Survey of Procedures for Counselors

Behavior therapy has expanded dramatically as a result of its demonstrated effectiveness with many types of human problems. This article provides the counselor a current survey of behavior therapy procedures as well as information concerning their applicability and validity.     

Increasing Empathy for Employment Service Counselors: A Practicum

Outservice practicum training of employment service counselors presents a particular challenge to counselor educators. An overview of a two-week practicum-laboratory training program is presented and discussed. The efficacy of the training is examined from the standpoint of helpful levels of empathy presented by the employment service counselors trained. The difference between pretraining and posttraining levels of empathy indicated statistically significant gains were realized.     

Disability and Family Intervention: A Perspective for Counselors

Thomas H. Hohenshil and Rodney K. Goodyear , Special Assignment Editors Disability and Family Intervention: A Perspective for Counselors Hilda P. Versluys, Physical Rehabilitation and Family Dynamics. Rehabilitation Literature, March-April, 1980, 41 (3–4), 58–65.     

Attachment: Implications for Counselors

This article discusses how attachment theory can be a useful strategy for producing therapeutic change and more productive client functioning. It also addresses the basic concepts of attachment theory and the parallels between counseling and attachment. A case example is provided to focus, integrate, and elaborate the elements presented.     

Freud's Psychosexual Stage Conception: A Developmental Metaphor for Counselors

In this article, the author conceptualizes the counseling process and its outcome by comparing it metaphorically to Freud's psychosexual stage conception of personality development. Specifically, he focuses on resemblances between the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages of both Freud's conception and the counseling process. Suggestive of the heuristic quality of metaphorical comparisons, new meanings can be drawn from these resemblances, leading to fresh insight into the nature of the counseling relationship.