Counselor Ethnicity,Counselor Nonverbal Behavior,and Session Outcome With Asian American Clients: Initial Findings

Five Asian American and 5 European American female counselors each saw 3 Asian American volunteer clients for 1 session of career‐focused individual counseling. Examination of counselor nonverbal behaviors revealed that European American counselors displayed significantly greater frequency of adaptors, postural shifts, and smiles than did Asian American counselors. The frequency of smiles was significantly positively correlated with client‐rated session positivity and session arousal, and the frequency of postural shifts was significantly positively correlated with client‐rated session arousal. Limitations and implications of the findings are described.     

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.     

工作同盟和领悟对咨询效果的影响

为了解短程咨询中工作同盟和领悟对咨询效果的影响,以12个个案94次会谈为对象,考察工作同盟、领悟分别与会谈效果、治疗效果的关系,并考察二者共同作用于效果的方式。结果表明,咨访双方评定的工作同盟都可以正向预测会谈效果,但不能预测治疗效果;领悟与会谈有效性正相关,领悟正向预测治疗效果;咨询师评定的同盟的三个维度以领悟为中介影响其对会谈效果的评价。     

Gay and bisexual male clients' perceptions of counseling: the role of perceived sexual orientation similarity and counselor universal-diverse orientation

A recurring question in multicultural counseling is whether client-counselor similarity on sociodemographic characteristics benefits counseling. A related issue is how counselor orientation to diversity relates to counseling process and outcome, both as a main effect and in interaction with counselor-client sociodemographic match. This cross-sectional study investigated these questions in relation to gay and bisexual male clients' counseling experiences by examining clients' perceived similarity to their counselor in sexual orientation, as well as counselors' self-reported orientation to diversity (assessed in terms of level of universal-diverse orientation [UDO]). Data were from 83 male-male client-counselor dyads recruited from lesbian/gay/bisexual-affirming counseling practices, where clients identified as gay or bisexual and counselors identified as gay, bisexual, or heterosexual. Counselor UDO was positively and uniquely associated with client ratings of the working alliance, session depth, and session smoothness. Perceived sexual orientation similarity was not directly related to any of the counseling-related criterion variables. Moreover, when counselors reported low levels of UDO, perceived similarity was negatively associated with the client-rated alliance and perceived improvement. Client religious commitment-a control variable in all analyses--was uniquely and negatively associated with client ratings of perceived improvement in counseling.     

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.     

Predicting Dropout in Counseling Using Affect Coding of the Therapeutic Relationship: An Empirical Analysis

This study used an observational research method to examine affective counselor–client exchanges during the initial session of counseling for clients who dropped out of counseling and clients who remained in counseling. Results confirmed significant differences in the affect codes of clients and counselors between the 2 groups. Discriminant function analyses classified 77% of counselors and clients in the correct groups and correctly classified over 94% of clients who returned for 4 or more sessions.     

Soft determinism + awareness = shared responsibility Comment: More Words About Words: A Reaction to “Soft Determinism…”

This article seeks to present a viable resolution of one of the perennial ideological issues in counseling: the determinism-human freedom dilemma. That this problem is of pivotal significance to counselors is immediately evident in view of its bearing on the related professional issue of client and counselor responsibility. A conceptual model involving limited personal freedom within a framework of biological-environmental determinism is reviewed, followed by a concluding comment on the counselor's shared responsibility for the outcomes of the counseling relationship. The author rejects the notion that the counselor can function as a neutral observer in client decision-making     

Counseling for the transition to adulthood as joint, goal-directed action

Transition is important in the career literature as it identifies times at which people are often likely to consult counselors about issues for which they need help. However, the counseling literature has not provided a conceptualization of, or research on, the joint, goal-directed actions and projects of the counselor and the client, which explicitly reflect the goal-directed nature of the transition itself. To address this issue, 12 counseling dyads, representing 37 counseling sessions, were studied. In these dyads, counseling was observed as the joint, goal-directed action between professional counselors and youth who sought assistance with their transition to adulthood. The data were collected using the action-project method. The counseling sessions were video-recorded, then immediately played back for the counselor and client separately to gather their recalled thoughts and feeling during counseling. Detailed qualitative analysis of the data set addressed the research question, “What are the goal-directed projects that counselors and their clients jointly construct, articulate, and enact relevant to the transition to adulthood?” The findings indicated the relationship and identity are intertwined goal-directed projects within counseling as well as outside of it. These projects contributed to the reframing and reorganization of clients' transition projects outside of counseling in occupational, educational, and familial domains. The findings suggest important implications for counseling youth in transition, that is, counselors and clients explicitly address their joint relationship and identity goals in an effort to realize a mutually satisfactory and important transition to adulthood.     

“Meeting Someone at the Edge”: Counselors’ Experiences of Interpersonal Stress

Using consensual qualitative research, the authors explored the factors that contribute to counselors’ experiences of interpersonal stress and how counselors respond to interpersonal stressors within therapeutic settings. Thirteen professional counselors representing a variety of counseling contexts and settings participated in semistructured interviews. Through consensus building, the authors identified 4 domains within the data: client characteristics, relationship dynamics, counselor response, and personal vs. professional self. The findings suggest that client characteristics and relationship dynamics are catalysts to counselor interpersonal stress responses, which shape their conscious awareness of the experience. Implications for clinical practice, clinical supervision, and counselor wellness are discussed.     

The counselor perspective on the use of directives in counseling in China: Are directives different in China as in the United States?

Eight Chinese counselors were interviewed about their use of directives in counseling. They typically believed that directives can be beneficial in counseling Chinese clients. They used directives to extend the influence of counseling beyond sessions, meet client needs and expectations, and fit their own personality and orientation. In terms of conditions that need to be met for directives to be helpful, they identified client factors such as readiness, communication styles, past experience, and insight; the counselor factor of ability to communicate directives; and the therapeutic relationship. They emphasized the importance of clients acquiring a new perspective as a result of directives. Cultural factors in using directives are discussed.     

Why Are Self-Disclosing Counselors Attractive?

Despite much evidence that counselor self-disclosure tends to be favorably received by clients, it is unclear which component is more influential: the act of revealing personal information or the information itself, especially when it implies client-counselor similarity. Based on the social influence model, we contrasted, in a quasicounseling analogue, (a) counselors who disclosed personal material that was similar to the client's problem, (b) counselors who disclosed problematic but irrelevant information, (c) counselors who disclosed nothing, and (d) counselors whose similarity to the client was revealed by someone else. Results show no differential effects on participants' perceptions of the counselor, but postresearch structured interviews indicated that both the disclosures and the similarity information had a considerable impact on participants' experience as clients during the counseling session.     

Client Cognitive Responses as a Function of Quality of Counselor Verbal Responses

This study examined the relationship between high and low quality counselor responses in four response modes and client cognitions. Twenty-one university students participated in two sessions of brief counseling that included high and low quality counselor responses in paraphrasing, questioning, reflection of feeling, and self-disclosure. After each counseling session, participants used Kagan's (1975) interpersonal process recall method to report their cognitions in response to these counselor responses. Results indicated that the participants had more favorable cognitions toward the counselor associated with high quality counselor paraphrasing and reflection of feeling responses. Participants' cognitions directed toward themselves did not differ in response to any of the four high and low quality counselor responses. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Value Conflict Resolution: A Training Model for Counselors of Minority Clients

It is assumed that the employment counselor controls what happens in the counseling session by virtue of position and superior knowledge of what the counseling process can and cannot provide. When employment counselors counsel individuals who have cultural and racial backgrounds different from their own, the probability of value conflict in problem solving and decision making is increased. Counselor control over the counseling process suggests that these conflicts will often be resolved according to the value preferences of the counselor. Failure to consider the value input of the client leads to the development of plans for action that don't work. The Carkhuff helping model is presented to show where counselor-client value conflicts are likely to occur, and a value conflict resolution training model is provided to help counselors assess value conflicts and resolve them in ways that promote client-counselor success.     

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。     

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.     

Counselor and client personality as determinants of counselor expectancy effects

Seventy-eight students enrolled in summer-session college courses were randomly assigned to serve either as counselors or as clients for a 20-min, role-played peer counseling session. All of the subjects completed a battery of standardized personality measures. Each counselor interacted with two clients. Prior to the sessions, the counselor was led to believe that one of the clients was especially introverted and that the other client was especially extraverted. Dependent measures were based on clients' change scores on a mood adjective rating scale administered before and after the peer counseling sessions. Analyses showed that counselors who were more successful at biasing their clients in the direction of their expectancies (a) scored higher on measures of Dogmatism, Nurturance, and Social Recognition, (b) scored lower on Impulsivity, and (c) were more likely to be women. Clients who were more susceptible to counselor bias scored higher on the Self-Monitoring Scale, the Self-Monitoring Other-Directedness subscale, and Social Recognition. These results are discussed in light of previous research and their implications for research on interpersonal expectancy effects.     

Impact of Two Clinical Peer Supervision Models on Practicing School Counselors

Two forms of clinical peer supervision were provided for a sample of 29 practicing school counselors. Pre- and posttest measures were used to assess the counselors' level of job satisfaction, counseling self-efficacy, and counseling effectiveness (including empathic responding, adaptability and flexibility in counselor response, and client behavior change). The sample was divided into 3 groups (2 treatment and 1 control). Each supervision treatment lasted 9 weeks. None of the analyses of covariance examining treatment effects were significant. However, these individually nonsignificant results showed movement in the hypothesized direction in each instance, indicating small but pervasive effects of treatment. Participants' qualitative session evaluations also supported the helpfulness of clinical peer supervision for school counselors. Implications for future research and the practice of school counselor supervision are discussed.     

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.     

Counselor Intentionality: Implications for the Training of Beginning Counselors

This article discusses how counselor intentions function within the process of counseling. Counselor intentions are discussed within the framework of the cognitive mediational paradigm. Implications of the use of counselor intentions for the training of beginning counselors are also delineated.