Building on an Empirical Foundation: Strategies to Enhance Good Practice

Reviews of the research literature on outcomes in counseling agree that counseling works. It is also possible to use research to identify strategies for increasing the probability of successful counseling. Such strategies include careful assessment of the client, matching the client and counselor on demographic and attitudinal variables, and maintaining a productive working alliance through open disclosure to the client of the counselor's background and procedures, inquiry into the client's experience of counseling process, and management of client resistance.     

Client Adherence to Asian Cultural Values,Common Factors in Counseling,and Session Outcome With Asian American Clients at a University Counseling Center

Based on data from 61 Asian American clients at a university counseling center, the study found that client‐perceived match on client‐counselor belief about problem etiology was related to counselor credibility, empathy, and cross‐cultural competence; the client‐counselor working alliance; session depth; and the likelihood of the client recommending the counselor to another client. An interaction effect showed that both strong match on belief about problem etiology and high client expectation for counseling success were associated with strong client‐counselor working alliance.     

Client as counselor: self-regulation strategies

Recent research in counseling suggests the efficacy of teaching the clients to be their own counselors through the use of self-regulation procedures. This article explores three primary steps involved in helping clients to control their own behavior change: self-observation, self-monitoring, and self-regulation strategies. Self-regulation provides an affirmative answer to the question: “Is the client a counselor?” by promoting client responsibility and independence in the counseling process.     

会谈中的当事人阻抗及工作同盟的影响因素:一项过程研究

从心理咨询过程研究视角,以38个会谈为对象,考察咨询师指导和当事人特质逆反对当事人阻抗的影响,并检验三者对工作同盟的影响。结果:指导正向预测阻抗,特质逆反则不能,二者的交互作用也不显著;阻抗负向预测工作同盟,指导则不能,二者的交互作用和中介作用都不显著,但阻抗的中介效应相对更大。结论:咨询师指导增加当事人阻抗;当事人阻抗破坏工作同盟,并在咨询师指导对工作同盟的影响过程中可能起中介作用。     

Metaphor as an Instrument for Orchestrating Change in Counselor Training and the Counseling Process

The authors explore the use of metaphors as a training tool for beginning counselors for enhancing client case conceptualization, counselor‐client relationships, and intervention strategies. The history of the use of metaphors in counseling, several definitions, and a case study are presented. The authors discuss intentional use of metaphors with students in training and with clients. How to introduce the use of metaphors into counselor training and practice is also included.     

Person‐Centered Counseling: The Culture Within

The variables most related to success in counseling outcome research are the client‐counselor relationship and the personal and situational resources of the client (extratherapeutic variables). When these variables are compromised, a “specificity myth” is endorsed purporting that there are specific treatments for particular groups of people. This myth is a direct result of a shift in focus from the client to the counselor as the expert who focuses on “doing” counseling rather than “being” a counselor. Person‐centered counseling cuts to the core of therapeutic success: the relationship of the counselor‐client and the utilization of the client's resources.     

Pitfalls in Counseling Alcoholic Clients

Counseling alcoholic clients is a difficult problem for even the most seasoned counselor. Clients' abilities to use denial and manipulation demand a parallel counselor ability to identify dynamics properly, to deal with defenses, and to provide empathetic support while remaining emotionally noninvested. The unique dynamics of alcoholism demand that the counselor develop unique and innovative strategies within the counseling relation, literally to save the life of the client.     

Counseling Muslim Women: Navigating Cultural and Religious Challenges

In this article, the authors consider strategies for counseling female Muslim clients. First, they review general beliefs and practices of Muslims in the United States. Through the use of a case study, they illustrate a collaborative method of counseling Muslim women that is based on a trusting client‐counselor relationship.     

Counselor Sex Role Orientation,Flexibility, and Working Alliance Formation

The authors examined the hypothesized relationship among counselor androgyny, counselor flexibility, and the establishment of client-rated working alliances. In Study 1, 41 counseling students completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1981a) and the Counselor Behavior Analysis Inventory (Gabbard, Howard, & Dunfee, 1986). Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no relationship between androgyny and counseling flexibility. In Study 2, 42 counseling students completed the BSRI and videotaped counseling sessions with a recruited client. Analyses revealed a significant relationship between counselor flexibility and client ratings of working alliance, but no relationship between counselor androgyny and counselor flexibility. Research and clinical implications are discussed.     

The Self of the Counselor

The counselor generally finds more difficulty in examining his “self” than in looking at the self of other counselors or of clients. On the assumption that the best display of counselor self occurs during the counseling relationship, a number of counseling excerpts are examined in an attempt to illustrate the level of counselor freedom. Counselor freedom is viewed as being related to the ability of the counselor to establish an empathic relationship with the client, to his ability to operate within the client's frame of reference, and to his ability to be genuine and honest in his relationship with the client.     

The Effect of Client Demeanor Upon the Verbal Responses of School Counselors

In a study of counselor verbal behavior as a function of client stimulus input, a counseling paradigm was employed using 4 client-actors and 30 counselors. Independent variables were hostile or friendly client behavior, amount of counseling experience, counselor sex and client sex. The dependent variable of counselor verbal behavior was measured by a revision of the Bales Interaction Process Analysis Categories. Analysis of variance led to the finding that all of the independent variables had a statistically significant effect upon the counselors' verbal responses, but the number of response categories affected varied from 1 to 7 depending on the variable involved. Significant interaction effects were also found. From the data, it was concluded that client demeanor and client sex significantly influenced counselors' verbal responses, but counselor experience and counselor sex were relatively unimportant in their effect upon the counselors' behavior.     

Value Analysis: A Model of Personal and Professional Ethics in Marriage and Family Counseling

The Ethics Model of Marriage and Family Counseling derived from an integration of an ecosystem and a dialectical framework is presented, and its underlying assumptions are discussed. Six basic counseling values including responsibility, integrity, commitment, freedom of choice, empowerment, and right to suffer are analyzed as they relate to the individual level of the counselor microsystem, the family level of the client microsystem, and the overlapping mesosystem of the counseling process. The discussion also takes the societal value context as the macrosystem into account. As an example of possible value clashes between counselor and client level, suicide is discussed as a means of applying the presented six basic values to the model and of describing possible strategies in response to this specific value dilemma.     

Measuring Counseling Effectiveness: The Role of Client,Counselor, and Agency

To measure counseling effectiveness in general, and employment and training agencies in particular, the evaluator must include client, counselor, and agency factors in the evaluation scheme. A model measuring counseling effectiveness discusses representative client, agency, and counselor factors, identifies subfactors, and gives suggestions for measuring each. Many of the client-oriented factors can be assessed through self-report, data for which can be elicited via a detailed questionnaire similar to the one in the appendix.     

Empathy: An Integral Model in the Counseling Process

Expanding on a framework introduced by Carl Rogers, an integral model of empathy in counseling uses empathic understanding through 3 ways of knowing: Subjective empathy enables a counselor to momentarily experience what it is like to be a client, interpersonal empathy relates to understanding a client's phenomenological experiencing, and objective empathy uses reputable knowledge sources outside of a client's frame of reference. Across the counseling process, empathy is integral to treatment strategies and interventions.     

Commentary on “Life as a Pregnant Genetic Counselor”

The genetic counseling role is complex. There are frequently challenges raised for the genetic counselor both personally with the client and through factors external to the genetic counselor such as the clinical setting. The pregnant genetic counselor working in a prenantal diagnosis center may be confronted by her own countertransference towards the client or by the client’s tranference. The processes of transference and countrtransference need to be clearly understood, identified and dealt with in a sensitive self aware manner to facilitate the role of communicating empathically and giving genetic information to facilitate informed client decision making. Regular professional supervision and debriefing for the genetic counselor are essential to develop professional boundaries and to develop self awareness.     

Client Quest—A Key to Counseling

The expression quest is proposed to represent any unifying theme of client purposes. Counseling is then defined as an interview in which client quest is superordinate to counselor quest. It is suggested that client quests be classified by their direction. Thus, quests may be for understanding or change, and, at a higher level, for mastering self or environment. The identification, clarification, and management of client quests becomes central to effective counseling. Ideally, as an expert in human learning and development, the counselor is a hypothesis maker who works with his client to facilitate conquest. Dissonance is said to occur when the purposive balance is inappropriate to counselor or client quests. The congruent counselor reduces dissonance by discussing changes in the purposive balance openly with the client and by avoiding professional roles in which client quests are subordinated.     

Searching for the Glass Slipper: A Case Study in Midlife Career Counseling

There seems to be a paucity of counseling reports written from the perspective of both counselor and client. This article is presented as a case study of the first author's experience as a career counseling client of the second author. It is intended to illuminate for students and practitioners some typical counseling practices and the theoretical foundations from which they spring, as well as how the client reacted to them.     

Biological Foundations of Behavior: Implications for Counseling

Professional and social movements of the 1980s demand that counselors have a basic knowledge of biological foundations of behavior, a knowledge that has been neglected in counselor training programs, theories of counseling, and theories of personality. This article discusses biological explanations of human behavior and problems, along with implications and applications for the counselor in terms of the counseling setting, client problem, counselor role, counselor training, and the counseling profession.     

Gender Self‐Confidence and Social Influence: Impact on Working Alliance

The authors investigated the relationships between the counselor's gender self‐confidence, the counselor's use of social influence within the counseling session, and the counselor's sex in relation to the counseling relationship. These attributes were studied with regard to how deeply a therapeutic working alliance developed between the counselor and the client. Results support the importance of counselor characteristics on the counselor–client alliance. Implications for teaching, research, and practice are presented.     

Career counseling meets motivational interviewing: A sequential analysis of dynamic counselor–client interactions

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a client-centered communication style with the aim to resolve client ambivalence within a change-related counseling. Its potential benefit for career counseling has been discussed by several scholars but no empirical research has investigated MI in this context so far. The current study used process measures from MI to investigate dynamic interactions within a career counseling intervention. Overall, we analyzed two videotaped sessions of 14 unique counselor–client dyads. Verbal behavior of counselors and clients were coded with two observational coding schemes from MI (one for counselors and one for clients, respectively). Behavior profiles of counselors were compared with benchmarks of good MI. Furthermore, client verbal ambivalence was compared between sessions. Finally, we conducted lag sequential analyses to analyze temporal dynamics between counselor behavior and immediate client verbal responses across N = 6883 behavioral events. Our results showed, first, behavior profiles of career counselors did significantly differ from recommended counseling benchmarks of good MI practice. Second, as assumed on the basis of past studies, client ambivalence decreased across sessions. Third, MI consistent counselor behaviors showed a positive sequential association with client positive career talk, whereas MI inconsistent counselor behaviors showed the reverse pattern. Our results suggest that counseling behaviors recommended from MI are facilitating career interventions. We discuss how trainings in MI could amend career counseling interventions and provide ethical implications when integrating MI into career counseling programs.