A qualitative content analysis of ChatGPT's client simulation role-play for practising counselling skills

Role-play is often used as a pedagogical technique by counsellor educators to help counsellors-in-training (CITs) learn and practise counselling skills. This study used qualitative content analysis to assess the effectiveness of Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT), an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, in simulating client role-play to facilitate practising counselling skills. The author used 10 case vignettes to conduct a simulated role-play where ChatGPT was asked to simulate the client and author as counsellor. The results indicated that ChatGPT demonstrated authenticity, consistency, appropriate emotional expression, cultural sensitivity, empathy and self-awareness while portraying the client. However, at times, ChatGPT's responses to the counsellor's questions appeared overly idealised, lacking the authenticity typically observed in real clients. Furthermore, ChatGPT, as a simulated client, lacked non-verbal cues, limiting the overall experience of counselling skill practice. Recommendations for CITs and future research are discussed.     

The Timing of the Defense Opening Statement: Don't Wait Until the Evidence Is in1

Defense attorneys often reserve their opening statements until after presentation of evidence by the prosecution, a practice advocated by some experts. The current study, involving 291 subjects, varied the timing of the defense attorney's opening statement so that it preceded the prosecutor's opening statement, immediately followed the prosecutor's opening statement, or was reserved until after the prosecutor's case presentation. The type of opening statement (content vs. noncontent) and the testimony (altered vs. unaltered) were varied for purposes of increasing generalization. Materials were based on an actual case of auto theft and were presented in written form complete with judge's instructions. The results showed that subjects perceived eyewitness testimony, the prosecutor's opening statement, the prosecutor's closing statement, the defense attorney's closing statement, and the effectiveness of the attorneys differently depending on the timing of the opening statement. Each of these items favored the defense more than the prosecution if the defense opening statement was earlier rather than later. These effects did not interact with type of opening statement or the testimony alteration variable. Individual verdicts, when weighted by the subjects' confidence in their verdicts, were also affected by the timing variable with verdicts more favorable to the defense when the defense opening statement was given earlier rather than later. The consistency with which the timing variable affected subjects' impressions suggests that defense attorneys who take their first opportunity to make an opening statement, rather than delay, end up with a stronger case for their client. Possible exceptions to this conclusion are discussed.     

Cognitive Templating: A Technique for Feminist (and Other) Counselors

A technique designed to provide an idiosyncratic representation of a client's personal socialization experiences and a reanalysis of these experiences from a social-learning-theory perspective reveals the interconnectedness of client cognitions, feelings, and actions that contribute to the client's self-image. These data are presented to the client visually in diagrammatic form and aid the process of restructuring the self-concept. A case study illustrating the use of the cognitive-templating technique is presented, and the advantages of the procedure are outlined.     

Understanding Humility and Its Role in Relational Therapy

Humility is a character trait and virtue that has received scant attention in psychotherapy literature. A panel of experts was assembled to confer on their beliefs about humility for this Delphi study. They responded to a proposed definition of humility and provided a variety of statements regarding the role of humility in client change and relational therapy in general. The results suggest that key elements of change that occur during the process of relational therapy (including certain “common factors”) seem to be related to humility. Also, humility’s unique relationship to self and other suggests it is often at work in relational change. The authors propose further exploration of humility and its role as a pre-cursor to client change efforts. Humility’s role in the Transtheoretical Model of Change is hypothesized and future directions for theory and research are suggested.     

Confirming,Validating, and Norming the Factor Structure of Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change Initial and Intersession

Progress or feedback research tracks and feeds back client progress data throughout the course of psychotherapy. In the effort to empirically ground psychotherapeutic practice, feedback research is both a complement and alternative to empirically supported manualized treatments. Evidence suggests that tracking and feeding back progress data with individual or nonsystemic feedback systems improves outcomes in individual and couple therapy. The research reported in this article pertains to the STIC^® (Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change)—the first client‐report feedback system designed to empirically assess and track change within client systems from multisystemic and multidimensional perspectives in individual, couple, and family therapy. Clients complete the STIC Initial before the first session and the shorter STIC Intersession before every subsequent session. This study tested and its results supported the hypothesized factor structure of the six scales that comprise both STIC forms in a clinical outpatient sample and in a normal, random representative sample of the U.S. population. This study also tested the STIC's concurrent validity and found that its 6 scales and 40 of its 41 subscales differentiated the clinical and normal samples. Lastly, the study derived clinical cut‐offs for each scale and subscale to determine whether and how much a client's score falls in the normal or clinical range. Beyond supporting the factorial and concurrent validity of both STIC forms, this research supported the reliabilities of the six scales (Omega_hierarchical) as well as the reliabilities of most subscales (alpha and rate–rerate). This article delineates clinical implications and directions for future research.     

Assessment of Subjective Client Agency in Psychotherapy: A Review

Theoretical accounts of psychotherapy, especially of a constructivist or humanistic sort, often assert the importance of the client's active efforts in “making therapy work.” Psychotherapy research also supports the importance of the client's contribution to therapy outcomes. Research on subjective client agency, defined as a client's expectations for taking an active role in psychotherapy, is limited, however. This review describes and evaluates the psychometric qualities of six measures of this construct and provides recommendations for future research. Three of these measures are particularly suitable for further work by constructivist investigators of therapy process and outcome, a topic too rarely studied in the literature to date. Those studies that exist suggest that agency is positively related to the therapeutic alliance but does not directly affect therapy outcome. Additional process-outcomes studies in this area are warranted and could benefit from placing client agency in a broader framework that views therapy, and even therapy supervision, as an active process of mutual inquiry.     

The Influence of Counselor Trainee Anger-Proneness and Anger Discomfort on Reactions to an Angry Client

In this study the authors explored the relationship between counselor trainee anger-proneness and anger discomfort and trainees' reactions to an angry client. A total of 38 of trainees viewed and gave their reactions to a videotape of an angry client-actress. There were two dependent variables in the study: discomfort with and anger toward the client. Trainee anger-proneness and anger discomfort scores were positively and significantly related to discomfort with and anger toward the client. Implications for future research and training are discussed.     

Feminist Identity Development: Implications for Feminist Therapy With Women

This article discusses the implications of the Downing and Roush (1985) model of feminist identity development for feminist therapy with women. Following a summary of the model, the potential pitfalls of feminist therapy with the passive-acceptant client are described, as well as potential issues at subsequent stages of the client's identity development. Suggestions are made regarding how to facilitate clients' movement to higher levels of development. Finally, a research agenda is proposed that suggests hypotheses to be tested that arise from applying this model to conducting therapy with women.     

Teachers' reasoning about school fights,contexts, and gender: an expanded cognitive developmental domain approach

Teachers' moral reasoning about intervening in school fights in violence-prone subcontexts is an under-studied topic. The authors propose that concepts from cognitive developmental domain theory (CDD), public health, and environmental psychology be used conjointly to explore teachers' judgments about intervention in violence-prone subcontexts such as hallways, playgrounds, and cafeterias. It is argued that teachers (along with other members of the school community) have different preformed informational assumptions about violence-prone school subcontexts that systematically influence their judgments and interpretation of events in those locations. Two important informational assumptions are (1) the individuals' or groups' estimation of risk for physical harm or potential provocation in specific locations within the school and (2) the individuals' or groups' beliefs about the school staff's professional role or responsibility to monitor and intervene in violence-prone areas. In addition, the authors present evidence concerning teachers' informational assumptions about the gender of the intervening teachers and fighting students. Applications of this conceptual framework and future directions for research are explored.     

The Risks,Benefits, and Ethics of Trauma-Focused Research Participation

With the rising interest in the field of trauma research, many Institutional Review Boards, policymakers, parents, and others grapple with the impact of trauma-research participation on research participants' well-being. Do individuals who participate in trauma-focused research risk experiencing lasting negative effects from participation? What are the potential benefits that may be gleaned from participation in this work? How can trauma research studies be designed ethically, minimizing the risk to participants? The following review seeks to answer these questions. This review indicates that most studies in this area have found that only a minority of participants experience distress when participating in trauma-focused research. Furthermore, these negative feelings tend to dissipate quickly over time, with the majority of participants self-appraising their participation as positive, rewarding, and beneficial to society. Design characteristics that may serve to minimize participants' risk of experiencing distress are discussed, as well as implications for public policy and future research.     

Personal,Practical, and Professional Issues in Providing Managed Mental Health Care: A Discussion for New Psychotherapists

Written by a former corporate manager pursuing counseling as a 2nd career, this article offers pointed views on managed mental health care. Values of practitioners that are a mismatch for managed care are noted, and more specific disadvantages and advantages are examined. Loss of client confidentiality is addressed and procedures and technologies for its reclamation are noted. Negative effects on therapy are acknowledged and potential for better accountability and research are pointed out. Economic disadvantages of a small provider's practice as well as opportunities for creating new value and additional income are reviewed. The relatively sudden emergence of managed care is credited with a natural time lag preceding regulatory responses. Acknowledging that most new practitioners have little choice about the clients they serve, the article concludes that it would be shortsighted to rule managed care out of one's practice.     

Second-class citizen? Contract workers' perceived status,dual commitment and intent to quit

Outsourcing of jobs to contract workers who work alongside a client's employees has changed the human resource landscape of many organizations. In this study we examine how a contract worker's perceived employment status similarity to the client's own standard employees influences his/her affective commitment to both the client and the employer and ultimately intent to quit the employer. Using a sample of 623 contract workers, we found strong support for our hypotheses. In particular, findings indicate an important role for perceived employment status at the client organization in driving contract worker's attitudes and that contract workers consider both the client and the employer when making decisions to leave the employer. Implications for managing contractor relationships are discussed.     

Chickens or eggs? A follow‐up case study exploring links between physical and psychological impact of Tourette's syndrome and sexual abuse

This follow‐up case study highlights the complex relationship when working at the interface between physical and psychological symptoms. The paper draws upon conversations between an ex‐client and myself, held seven years after the end of our six year therapeutic relationship. Conversational interviews, based upon social constructionist beliefs, led to an unexpected exploration of the client's subsequent diagnosis of Tourette's syndrome (given several years after the end of therapy) and evolved into a struggle to reach a shared understanding of how she now makes connection between her problem with eating in public, her neck and facial tics, and childhood sexual abuse. Our research relationship provided both of us with a rare opportunity to reflect upon how she had made meaning of her counselling and its outcomes. The paper draws attention to the impact of counselling and therapy discourses concerning sexual abuse on the work we did at the time and asks how that work might be different today. It also helps us understand the layers of complexity and ambiguity contained within the client's stories. This multi‐layered case study represents the overlap and ‘messiness’ that mirrors the ‘lived experience’ of the persons involved, and provides an example of how co‐constructed research conversations can evoke stories that create meaning as they are told.     

Risk Orientation,Risk Exposure,and Policy Opinions: The Case of Free Trade

This research offers a general framework for thinking about how individual disposition towards risk influences public policy opinions. Affinity for or aversion to risk is, in part, a stable personality characteristic that interacts with risk and reward messages in complex policy debates. We examine the implications of this for public opinions about free trade with extensions to immigration policy. We argue and find that opinions about policy depend jointly upon one's exposure to potential gains or losses and one's risk orientation. The findings have implications for crafting and framing public policies because they highlight how individual characteristics are likely to shape the public response to policy proposals. Our findings suggest that there may be limits, in the aggregate, to the degree to which elites can alter the level of support for policies through framing or through offering risk‐mitigating policy provisions.     

Using Drawings to Elicit Nonverbal Constructs in Experiential Personal Construct Psychotherapy

Clients who have experienced psychological wounds prior to the use of language frequently struggle to articulate and make sense of their core constructs around self and others. These early wounds can have a significant influence on future relational interactions, even though they may be experienced at a nonverbal level. While eliciting these preverbal constructs may be essential to the healing process, without verbal representation the therapeutic task can be difficult. In this article, we will discuss the use of symbolism within personal construct psychology as well as the use of drawings as representations of nonverbal constructs. We will then discuss experiential personal construct psychotherapy and its focus on the ways we both connect and disconnect from others. Finally, we will present Kristen, a therapy client who experienced early relational wounds and increasingly dissociated in response to relational stress as she matured. Kristen's work in therapy around her fragmented sense of self included drawing her internal self-parts. Only then was she able to wrap words around that which she previously experienced nonverbally. In this case study, Kristen's drawings and her core constructs as elicited during four years of therapy will be presented and discussed.     

Pilot test of a measure to assess clients’ perceptions of their home visitors

Home visiting services for caregivers of infants and young children have been found to be an effective method for promoting child development. Unfortunately, such services suffer from high rates of attrition, suggesting the need to identify factors related to client retention in services. Research has indicated that the client-provider relationship is an important predictor of client retention in home visiting services; however, measures to assess this relationship are limited. This study reports on a pilot test of the Client Perceptions of Home Visitors Questionnaire, developed to assess home visiting clients’ perceptions of their relationship with their home visitor. The measure was completed by 39 diverse home visiting clients during pregnancy in a midwestern town in the United States. The scale was found to have good internal consistency. Validity analyses found that the scale was positively associated with client satisfaction with services and perceived provider cultural sensitivity. The scale was also positively associated with retention in services at an 8-month follow-up. Additional research should examine the measure's psychometrics with larger samples.     

Changing the Past,Present, and Future

Abstract

There has recently been a growing movement within psychology toward placing a greater emphasis on the positive aspects of human nature. This movement, known as positive psychology, focuses on the scientific study of human strengths and virtues as well as the variables that promote positive traits, emotions, and institutions. The purpose of this article is to discuss selected topics of research in positive psychology and the potential psychotherapeutic application of this research for children and youth, particularly in school settings. Interventions are presented for altering and enhancing children's and adolescents' perspectives regarding their past, their experience of the present, and their hopes for the future.     

Use of Local Norms to Improve High-Point Code-Type Concordance of Two Short Forms of the MMPI

Criticisms of short forms of the MMPI have been based on claims of unsatisfactory high-point code-type concordance rates. The use of local norms has been suggested as a possible solution for these low concordance rates. In this study local norms for three client populations were developed for the MMPI-168 and Faschingbauer's abbreviated MMPI. These local norms did not significantly increase high-point code-type concordance. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed and suggestions for future research offered.     

Client Vocational Interests as Predictors of Client Reactions to Counselor Intentions

It was hypothesized that client vocational interest scores would predict client reactions to counselor intentions in Hill and O'Grady's (1985) process model. Twenty-four volunteer undergraduate clients (17 women, 7 men) assigned to counseling treatment with 24 doctoral students (14 women, 10 men), reviewed 3 videotaped sessions recording intentions and reactions, respectively. Results indicated that client vocational interests were predictive of reactions clients reported in response to counselor intentions. Issues of working with persons with various vocational interests, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.