Group Counseling with Male Underachieving College Volunteers

The effects of two different methods of group counseling on those personality characteristics that typify the male academic underachiever and on grade-point average (GPA) were studied. Eight groups (N = 81) of male underachievers who volunteered for counseling were equally divided between two counselors who each led two groups in the leader-structured (LS) method and two in the group-structured (GS) method. A like group served as a control. Men in the LS groups increased in ego strength when compared with those in the control group and had a significantly greater rate of positive change in GPA than men in either the GS or control groups. The GS groups' rate of change in GPA was also greater than the controls' after counseling. Counseled men were more able to overtly express hostile feelings than controls. Three months following counseling the LS groups' rate of positive change in GPA was significantly greater than the controls' but not greater than the GS groups'. The results indicated that the LS method of group counseling does significantly affect both the personality characteristics and academic achievement of male college underachievers who volunteer for counseling.     

Nonsectarian Counseling in Churches: A Delicate Balance

This account of the author's 2 contrasting experiences as a church counselor raises awareness regarding counseling in new venues and in response to congregational and community needs. Church members responded to the invitation to come to counseling before problems became crises; the majority of the members explored midlife and other developmental issues. Specific concerns related to confidentiality and privacy, counselor values and attitudes, the extent of pro bono services, the counselor's relationship with clerics, counseling of clerics, church membership, outreach, and boundaries are addressed, as well as the effective use of discussion groups for youth, men, women, and parents in building a sense of community.     

A Web Replication of Snyder,Decker, and Bersheid's (1977) Experiment on the Self-Fulfilling Nature of Social Stereotypes

Abstract

Authors instructed two groups of male participants to respond to a web personal advertisement that had a photograph of either an attractive or unattractive woman. In the physically attractiveness condition, it was found that the message was longer and contained few spelling and grammatical mistakes than in the condition where the male's participant believe that the personal advertisement came from an unattractive woman. Two undergradutates females who were unaware of the experimental conditions judged that they had more probability to respond to the male's message in the physically attractiveness condition.     

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.     

Socially Optimized Learning in a Virtual Environment: Reducing Risky Sexual Behavior Among Men Who Have Sex With Men

A socially optimized learning approach, which integrates diverse theoretical perspectives, places men who have sex with men (MSM) in an interactive virtual environment designed to simulate the emotional, interpersonal, and contextual narrative of an actual sexual encounter while challenging and changing MSM's more automatic patterns of risky responses. MSM assume a character's identity and are scaffolded in their decision‐making and relearning process by supportive, and often humorous, peer coaches who encourage situated learning of self‐regulatory and behavioral skills, and tailor and frame their responses to be responsive to the men's behavioral choices. In a longitudinal design, participants were randomly assigned to receive either an interactive video (IAV) intervention with peer counseling or to a peer‐counseling‐alone control. Compared to the counseling alone, men who also received the IAV reduced risky anal sex behaviors and increased protected anal sex behaviors.     

Displaced Homemakers: Unresolved Issues

The problems of displaced homemakers are not new, nor are they associated with only one target group. By reexamining the literature and personal counseling experiences of the 1960's, Zawada identifies 16 problems that overlap with those of today's displaced homemakers. Hopefully, this identification of unresolved issues will provide a working base for helping this new target group.     

An Attributional (Causal Dimensional) Analysis of Perceptions of Sexual Harassment1

Female and male subjects read one of three scenarios depicting a social-sexual interaction between a man and a woman. The scenarios varied in severity of the stimulus male's behavior according to whether sexual harassment had occurred. Subjects then rated the offensiveness of his behavior and whether it constituted sexual harassment. Subjects also rated the stimulus male's behavior on Weiner's (1986) three basic dimensions of causality: locus of causality, or the perceived cause of the behavior as internal or external; stability, or the likelihood of its recurrence; and controllability, or the amount of volitional influence he exercised during the interaction. Additionally, subjects reported their anger at the target male and sympathy for the target female. Findings generally indicated that for both women and men, as the scenarios increased in severity, these ratings were elevated. Gender comparisons also showed elevations in these ratings for female but not for male subjects, and only in the scenarios of lesser severity. Regression analyses revealed attribution variables—control, stability, and anger—as reliable predictors of perceived offensiveness and harassment in the most severe scenario, whereas affects were the most reliable predictors in scenarios of lesser severity. The implications of these findings for perception of sexual harassment are discussed.     

Rogers Redux: Relevance and Outcomes of Motivational Interviewing Across Behavioral Problems

Very little work regarding C. Rogers's (1961) client‐centered counseling has been published in the counseling discipline's journals over the last 20 years. However, during this time there has been an impressive output of empirical research using motivational interviewing (MI) in which C. Rogers's theory and approach are foundational. A review of MI's basic theoretical premises and applications for a multitude of behavioral problems are presented. Justification for integrating MI into counseling practice, training, and research is offered.     

留守儿童情绪和行为问题特征的潜在类别分析：基于个体为中心的研究视角

对2288个留守儿童样本用儿童长处与困难问卷（SDQ）进行施测,并对他们的情绪和行为问题特征进行探索性的潜在类别分析,发现留守儿童的情绪和行为问题存在明显的分组特征。统计指标支持了3个潜类别的模型,根据3个潜在类别在问卷各条目上的条件概率特征分别定义为：“适应困难组”,“行为冲动组”和“良好适应组”,3个潜在类别所占全体样本的比例分别为32%、41%和27%。进一步的分析发现：相比较良好适应组而言,适应困难组和行为冲动组有着显著的性别和年级水平效应,适应困难组和行为冲动组的男生所占比例更大;同时,这两个组的小学生所占的比例也更大。     

Romantic partners’perceptions of social network attributes with the passage of time and relationship transitions

Data from five waves of a longitudinal study of romantic couples were analyzed to examine how the partners’perceptions of social network attributes (i.e., network approval for the relationship, network overlap, liking for partner's network) change with the passage of time and relationship transitions. The results indicated that perceptions of network approval, especially from the male partner's friends, tended to increase over time for the participants whose relationship remained intact throughout the longitudinal study. Furthermore, the transitions to engagement and to marriage were also associated with an increase in network approval from the male's friends. Individuals who experienced a breakup during the study reported more network approval than disapproval for the breakup. Finally, the likelihood of a breakup was significantly lower the more approval women reported from their friends and the more women expressed liking for their partner's family at Time 1 (these same associations were nonsignificant for men). These findings provide support for various social network perspectives, including social reactance (Lewis, 1973).     

Gender and Infertility: A Relational Approach to Counseling Women

Much of the research on infertility reinforces differing effects for women and men, with women reporting more serious repercussions medically, psychologically, and socially. However, the unique counseling needs of infertile women have not been addressed through traditional counseling theory. The Relational Model (J. V. Jordan, 1995) of women's development is a theory that explains women's development in a context of relationships, specifically relationships that promote growth for self and others. This model is applied to counseling women who are experiencing infertility, and a case presentation is provided to illustrate the approach.     

Comparative Effectiveness of Student and Professional Counselors

A sample of 160 beginning freshmen, half males and half females, received six and one-half hours of academic adjustment guidance from same-sex professional counselors. Upperclassman student counselors gave equivalent guidance to all other beginning freshmen at Southwest Texas State College. A matching sample of 80 men and 80 women was subsequently drawn from the 316 freshmen receiving student-to-student counseling. Age, sex, measured scholastic ability, measured study orientation, and high school academic achievement were employed as matching variables. The four professional and eight student counselors completed 50 clock hours of identical pre-counseling training, used identical guidance materials, and followed identical counseling activity sequences. Equivalent counseling facilities were provided for all counselors. Test, questionnaire, and scholarship data were employed to evaluate the comparative effectiveness and acceptability of counseling given the professional counseled and the student counseled groups. Student counselors were found to be as effective as professional counselors on all criteria of counseling effectiveness. Furthermore, freshmen counseled by student counselors made significantly greater use of the information received during counseling, as reflected by first-semester grades and residual study problems. It was concluded that carefully selected, trained, and supervised student counselors provide a practical and productive addition to the college's guidance program.     

Low intimacy as a mediator between depression and clinic couple relationship satisfaction

This study examined low intimacy as a mediator between partners' depression symptoms and low relationship satisfaction in a sample of 82 heterosexual couples who sought therapy at an outpatient clinic. Both the amount of intimate behavior that partners enact and the level of pleasure they experience from each other's intimate acts were assessed. Using an actor–partner interdependence model approach, path model analysis simultaneously included both partners' scores on measures of depression, intimate behavior, pleasure from partner's intimate behavior, and relationship satisfaction. Overall, female depression symptoms had a greater impact than male depression symptoms on the couple relationship. Male depression had little effect on intimacy, whereas the female partner's depression affected her pleasure from the male's intimate behavior and both partners' enactment of intimate behavior. The results indicate the importance of examining reciprocal influences between partners' functioning to understand and treat intimacy problems.     

Counseling Counselors: A Survey of Values

This study surveyed counselors' rates of involvement in counseling, explored whether counselors value seeing therapists of a similar theoretical orientation to their own, and examined which characteristics were important in choosing one's therapist. Of 2,000 randomly selected ACA members, with a 38% return rate, 80% were found to have attended counseling, with women seeking counseling at significantly higher rates than men. Having been in counseling varied as a function of division affiliation as well as counselor's theoretical orientation. Finally, this study also explored the characteristics deemed important in choosing one's counselor and the values counselors hold regarding involvement in their own therapy.     

Male Gender Role Conflict,Depression, and Help Seeking: Do College Men Face Double Jeopardy?

To investigate the previously untested hypothesis that college men with higher levels of male gender role conflict (MGRC) experience both increased risk of depression and more negative attitudes toward seeking counseling services, this study used latent variable modeling to examine these relations. Two components of MGRC were identified: restriction-related MGRC, which predicted 25% of the variance in help-seeking attitudes, and achievement-relatedMGRC, which predicted 21% of the variance in depression. It is suggested that outreach programs designed to increase college men's willingness to use counseling services attempt to counter the option-limiting aspects of male gender roles, whereas counseling with depressed college men incorporate an examination of their perceptions of success and achievement.     

Counseling Rejected Applicants: Feedback for Career Development

In this article the author points out the need for more adequate counseling with an often neglected segment of the population: rejected applicants to higher education. He delineates the roles, functions, and problems of the counselor in this situation, using as an example current procedures for counseling rejected applicants in the Yale Physician's Associate Program. The article contains recommendations for counselors, so that they might become more familiar with the problems and functions of admissions committees, and for admissions committees, so that they might enlist the aid of those with counseling training in both the admissions process and the counseling of rejected applicants.     

The Non-Achievement Syndrome,Group Therapy,and Achievement Change

174 selected failing students at Illinois Institute of Technology were provided group counseling as a condition of their remaining in school. The assumption of the psychodynamics of the non-achievement syndrome was made regarding these students and a group counseling approach (NAS therapy) derived from an approach delineated by Roth and Meyersburg seemed appropriate and was utilized. 52 male subjects in this population were randomly selected for study as were 52 probationary, noncounseled males who were used as a comparison group. The results indicated that the counseled group increased their GPA's significantly and that these changes held over time. The GPA's of the comparison group did not increase significantly. The differences were attributable to the counseling experience.     

Predicting Expectations About Counseling: Psychological Factors and Gender Implications

The authors replicated and extended prior research regarding the relations among stages of change and expectations about counseling for actual clients. They added testing the predictive effects of personal growth orientation and gender for clients' expectations about counseling. Results indicated that personal growth orientation and gender contribute to understanding clients' expectations about counseling and that these effects may interact. Prior counseling experience was not an important predictor of these expectations for men or women.     

Religiosity,Gender, and Preferences for Religious Interventions in Counseling: A Preliminary Study

The authors sought to determine whether relationships existed between religiosity, gender, and preferences for a counselor's use of religious interventions in counseling. First, it was hypothesized that students with high religiosity would express stronger preferences for a counselor's use of religious interventions than would students with low religiosity. Second, it was hypothesized that women would express stronger preferences for religious interventions in counseling than would men. Results supported both hypotheses, and the findings may have important implications for counselors working with clients who indicate adherence to religious views or faith.