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.     

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.     

Factors Assisting Female Clients' Disclosure of Incest During Counseling

The purpose of this study was to explore specific behaviors and characteristics of counselors that relate to adult, female clients' disclosure of incest during counseling. A total of 37 female incest victims who had sought counseling within the previous 3 years completed the study. Information about disclosure of incest during counseling and perceptions of counselors' characteristics and reactions were gathered by a structured interview and the modified Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. Results suggest that factors related to initial disclosure and exploration of incest are client readiness, direct questioning by the counselor, specific counselor characteristics, and positive counselor reactions to initial disclosure. Guidelines for assisting clients' disclosure of incest are presented.     

Personal Versus Vocational Focus in Career Counseling: A Retrospective Outcome Study

In this archival study the authors sought to determine the relationship, if any, between counseling outcomes and the topical focus in career counseling. Twenty-two counselors saw 46 adult clients at a community-based clinic for an average of eight sessions. Counseling outcome and topical focus (the extent to which the actual content of counseling sessions reflected relatively more vocationally or personally focused topics) were assessed from follow-up questionnaires to former career clients and from trained raters' evaluations of the counselors' written progress notes. Results showed that, from the counselors' perspective, outcomes were better when the focus of the sessions was relatively more vocational than personal and when relatively more interviews were held. Client satisfaction, on the other hand, was predictable only from the counselor's level of experience. Satisfaction with occupational status was not associated with any of the client, counselor, or treatment factors. Discussion focuses on the contribution of the results to career counseling practice and on the feasibility and validity of retrospective, archival research.     

The Relationship of the Racial Identity Attitudes of Black Men to Perceptions of “Parallel” Counseling Dyads

The perceptions that Black men (N = 52) have of “parallel” dyads involving a Black male client and a White male counselor were examined in a vicarious participation analogue design. As defined by Helms (1984b), parallel dyad involves a client and counselor who share similar racial identity attitudes (i.e., attitudes about themselves relative to Blacks and Whites as reference groups). Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate whether racial identity attitudes predicted participants' reactions to the session and their perceptions of the counselors' cross-cultural competence and credibility. The results of the study indicated that racial identity attitudes significantly predicted participants' immediate reactions to the counselor. We used Helms's (1984b) interaction model to discuss the results and their implications for counseling practice and research.     

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.     

Termination: Analytic Reflections on Client Contact After Counselor Relocation

Client post-termination contact with counselors who have relocated has been neglected as a training and practice issue. The client may attempt to re-open the therapeutic relationship, even though the counselor has moved to a different geographical location and is not available to continue service delivery. In this article, analytic reflections are used to explore counselor, client, and process variables relative to counselors' response to “following” clients.     

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。     

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.     

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.     

Comparative analysis of a client's verbal responses in counseling sessions: quantitative case study

This study investigated how the in-session change in a client's verbal behavior might influence the effectiveness of counseling sessions. 10 sessions of counseling with a male undergraduate suffering from depressive mood were conducted by a humanistically oriented counselor. The two most effective and the two least effective sessions were identified according to the client's evaluation of the effectiveness of counseling sessions. Results indicated that over the three segments of the most effective sessions, the client gradually increased responses that indicated exploration of his own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. By contrast, the client continued talking mainly about past events in a storytelling manner throughout the least effective sessions.     

Characteristics of Clients Judged to Require Long-Term Counseling

This study examines one subgroup of clients seen at a university counseling center, namely, 72 clients who were expected by their counselor to remain in counseling for 10 or more interviews. Ratings were available on psychological characteristics for this sample and for the Counseling Center's total client population. In addition, the total university population could be compared with both of these groups on demographic characteristics. On the basis of pre- and post-counseling ratings of severity of problem, the sample being investigated was divided into Improved and Unimproved groups. Comparative data are examined with regard to class, college, sex, type of residence, type of problem, severity level at onset and termination, number of counseling interviews, motivation for counseling, defensiveness, and counselor's feelings toward client. Long-term counseling and improvement status are found to be a function of most of these variables.     

Infusing Professional Ethics Into Counselor Education Programs: A Multicultural/Social Justice Perspective

Multiculturalism and social justice counseling issues influence counselors' ethical thinking and behavior. Counselor educators are responsible for facilitating students' understanding of the relevance of multicultural/social justice counseling issues and ethical standards for professional practices. Added insights in these areas aid students to work within a culturally diverse society. This article focuses on the importance of addressing these complex issues by outlining strategies to infuse ethics into counselor education programs from a multicultural/social justice counseling perspective.     

Reducing Counselor Anxiety by Using Modeling Strategies

We hypothesized that beginning counselors experience interview-related anxiety that affects counselor performance. Two kinds of videotaped modeling—an expert model approach and a coping model approach—were compared as to the relative effectiveness of each method in reducing beginning counselors' anxiety toward a counseling interview. Those persons who viewed expert models significantly reduced situationally related anxiety following participation in an analogue interview. Persons who viewed coping models had nominal but nonsignificant reductions in anxiety. In neither group was anxiety significantly related to counselor performance. A modicum of anxiety may be a desirable attribute in beginning counselors. The relative merit of each kind of modeling strategy is discussed.     

Spiritual Assessment in Counseling: Methods and Practice

Given the widely expanding professional and empirical support for integrating spirituality into counseling, the authors present a practical discussion for raising counselors' general awareness and skill in the critical area of spiritual assessment. A discussion of rationale, measurement, and clinical practice is provided along with case examples. D. R. Hodge's (2001) spiritual life map is highlighted as an assessment tool. The authors also discuss the influence of counselor–client values and beliefs in therapy and the need to incorporate developmental and cultural influences in spiritual assessment.     

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.     

An Investigation of Client and Counselor Variables That Influence Likelihood of Counselor Self-Disclosure

Selected client and counselor variables affecting reported likelihood of self-disclosure by 120 experienced clinicians in relation to four scenarios were examined. Variables included client age and diagnosis and counselor gender, experience, and exposure to disclosing counselors in their own experience of counseling. Disclosure likelihood was greatest for high ego-strength diagnoses and for respondents who reported positive disclosures from counselors in their own counseling experiences. Reasons for and against using self-disclosure also were examined. Reasons for disclosing included promoting universality, giving encouragement, modeling, rapport-building, and offering alternatives. Reasons against disclosing included boundary blurring, concern about counselor welfare, merging, and premature closure. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

A qualitative study of citizens' experience of participating in health counseling

Individual health counseling is a form of intervention designed to minimize the effects of chronic health disease and to offer a path towards good health practices. The aim of the present study was to explore the experiences of those persons who participated in health counseling in order to assess the psychosocial significance of the counseling upon their health behavior. In addition the study was concerned with the factors which underlay peoples' decision to sign up for health counseling. The research involved 11 semi‐structured interviews with individuals who had participated in a municipality based health counseling program. Data was analyzed using Malterud's systemic text condensation and a theoretical framework around Bandura's social cognitive theory. Analysis revealed that an approach tailored to each individual with minor short‐term goals accompanied by feeling supported by the counselor produced the greatest impact on behavior. Receiving feedback from the counselor and feeling positive about the relationship were seen as essential. These aspects were also crucial in the decision to undertake health counseling. The study indicates that whether individual's sign up on their own initiative or conversely are invited to join the program has no influence upon their motivation to change their behavior. Overall the respondents demonstrated improvement in their behavior and attitudes towards their health. However, the study also indicates that this form of intervention is less or even ineffective without the support of the individual's immediate family.     

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.