Counseling Outcomes: Counselor Characteristics and Client Results

Eighteen counselors in one of the administrative areas of the California Department of Human Resources and 697 of their closed cases were studied in order to discover whether differences in employability outcomes did exist. The study attempted to answer the following questions: (a) How many clients achieve employability during their relationships with employment counselors? (b) What is the final disposition of cases that are closed other than employable? and (c) To what degree do counselors engage in placement activities and what influence do these activities have on employable closures? The study provides evidence that some counselors had significantly more clients achieve employable status than did other counselors.     

Coaching Clients to Manage Depression

The author presents a system of behavioral techniques that permits clients to manage their own depression. By coaching clients through the sequence of self-management procedures identified by Kahn (1976) and using the strategies offered by Lewinsohn (1975), counselors have an effective set of techniques to lead clients to successful coping with depression. The sequence of self-observation, self-mediation, and self-reinforcement activities is based on Lewinsohn's (1975) work and is effective with moderately depressed clients. This comprehensive treatment program requires a minimum amount of counselor intervention for a maximum amount of client gain.     

Addressing Spiritual Issues in Secular Counseling and Psychotherapy: Response to Helminiak's (2001) Views

D. A. Helminiak (2001) suggests that counselors who work within the framework of a client's chosen religious or spiritual perspective are illegitimately responding to spiritual issues in counseling. In contrast to this position, this article affirms that spiritually sensitive counselors who work within the religious or spiritual framework of clients can practice both ethically and effectively and can generate useful research examining the relationship between spirituality and successful therapeutic outcomes.     

Employment and Roles of Counselors in Mental Health Agencies

The authors studied the employment of counselors with master's degrees in multiservice mental health agencies. The study focused on the types of clients seen, the direct care services provided, and the administrative duties performed. Results suggested that the employment of counselors does not differ significantly from the employment of individuals with master's degrees in psychology and social work. Also, the data indicated that counselors are delivering direct care services that traditionally have been offered in mental health centers, that clients seen by counselors demonstrate a range of mental disorders, and that counselors are responsible for fulfilling various administrative duties.     

the interaction of work adjustment and attachment theory: employment counseling implications

Career development is a lifelong process beginning with career choice. However, career choice alone does not guarantee career success. Rather than focus on choosing a career, the theory of work adjustment (TWA) focuses on the process of becoming an exemplary employee through each stage of an individual's career. Within TWA, employee relationships with peers and bosses create reputations that may help or hinder promotion. Understanding attachment theory in relation to TWA may help clients to become more successful in their career. Case examples explain how employment counselors may integrate TWA and attachment theory with clients.     

How Chaos and Complexity Theory Can Help Counselors to Be More Effective

Chaos and complexity theory can help counselors to assist clients in new and unique ways. Chaos and complexity theory do not need to replace other counseling theories but can provide an alternative view. Using chaos theory in counseling requires, however, a revaluation of counselors' assumptions about the world, particularly about linearity, prediction, and control. This article uses a case study to illustrate how counselors can use chaos and complexity theory in their work with clients. This theory can offer an alternative framework to assist counselors in conceptualizing their clients and their practice.     

Job Satisfaction and Effective Performance of School Counselors

This study examines the relationships between job satisfaction and the effectiveness of the performance of first-year school counselors. Co-workers and administrators rated the counselors' effectiveness in 6 job activities, and clients rated the counselors in 3 aspects of the counseling interview. The performance ratings were correlated with the counselors' job satisfaction in 8 areas. Several job satisfaction dimensions were related to effective performance of selected activities by the co-workers, administrators, and clients. Satisfaction with their future and security in the job, relations with associates, involvement in the job, and training for the job were the dimensions most frequently related to job satisfaction. The nature of the relationships among the criteria of effective performance indicated that 3 groups had different perceptions of the counselor.     

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.     

Providing Counseling for Individuals With Alzheimer's Disease and Their Caregivers

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive condition that results in brain wasting and eventual death. With its increasing diagnosis rate, counselors will likely acquire clients with Alzheimer's disease or their caregivers. Important background information and several practical counseling methods are provided that may assist counselors working with this population.     

Counselors and the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide

With the shift in Americans' beliefs regarding legalizing physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, counselors must be prepared to counsel clients who have decided to end their lives. For counselors to avoid violating the ethical guidelines established by the American Counseling Association (ACA) regarding counseling these clients, a reevaluation of the ACA ethical standards may be needed.     

Guidelines for Clients of Private Practitioners: Committing the Structure to Print

Whether done explicitly or not, counselors structure the therapeutic relationship. Clients benefit because they are not left guessing about the ground rules. Counselors benefit from not having to redecide every time a new situation arises. Providing clients with the ground rules in writing helps counselors and their clients operate from a common frame of reference and reduces the likelihood that nontherapeutic issues will become a source of conflict. The author describes one practitioner's experiences in preparing and using guidelines with clients seen in a small private practice.     

End‐of‐Life Care: An Overview for Professional Counselors

Although “End‐of‐Life Care for Terminally Ill Clients” is a section of the ACA Code of Ethics (American Counseling Association, 2005), neither the Code nor the counseling literature provides much direction for counselors who work with clients who are dying and with the clients' loved ones. The authors provide counselors with an overview of the issues that may be relevant when working with such clients.     

Usefulness of Gati's Hierarchical Model of Vocational Interests for Career Counselors

Career counseling is complicated and involved, requiring counselors to use a conceptual framework to help guide them through the process. Using a case study, the author demonstrates how Gati's hierarchical model of vocational interests can assist counselors in working with clients concerned about their careers.     

Cultural barriers in the counseling relationship

Cultural barriers in the counseling relationship are the counselor's and client's reciprocal racial attitudes, counselor's ignorance of client's background, language barrier of poor people in general, client's lack of familiarity with counseling, the Negro's reservation about self-disclosure, and the sex and race taboo. The article suggests in-service and preservice training designed to help counselors examine their attitudes toward the culturally different and expose them directly to the culture of their clients.     

How Christian Spiritual and Religious Beliefs Help and Hinder Counselors' Empathy Toward Clients

The critical incident technique was used to examine how counselors' religion and spirituality help and hinder counselor empathy toward clients. Twelve counselors holding Christian beliefs identified 242 helping and 25 hindering incidents that formed 14 helping and 3 hindering categories. Categories reflected counselors relying on a natural connection to their spirituality, drawing from empathic roots in their religion or spiritual experience, and using commonalities shared with clients as a means of empathizing. Implications for research, counselor education, and counseling practice are discussed.     

Multicultural Counseling and Intrapersonal Value Conflict: A Case Study

The internal conflict between professional and personal values that counselors can experience when working with clients whose culture and values are different from their own is discussed. This is not a conflict between the counselor and the client, but is a conflict experienced within the counselor who is attempting to help resolve problems within the client's frame of reference, or worldview. A case study is presented that illustrates the senior author's experience in coping with a specific value conflict. It is suggested that as counselors become more proficient in multicultural counseling and more able to promote decision making from another's point of view, feelings of internal conflicts will decrease. Means of decreasing the likelihood of value conflicts are offered.     

Worldviews of Women: Comparisons Between White American Clients,White American Counselors,and Chinese International Students

Worldviews of White American women clients, White American women counselors, and Chinese international women students were surveyed. Multivariate planned comparisons showed significant differences between (a) White American clients and White American counselors and (b) Chinese international students and White American counselors. Income was a significant predictor of worldviews for White American clients. Age and marital status contributed strongly to the worldviews of White American counselors. Among the Chinese students, the Taiwanese and the Mainland Chinese held significantly different worldviews. Worldviews of women are discussed from feminist as well as cross-cultural perspectives. Future directions for practice, research. and theory are suggested regarding the multicultural counseling process with clients of different worldview orientations.     

Exploring the Meaning of Spirituality and Its Implications for Counselors

This article is one counselor's personal exploration of the nature of spirituality and its relevance to counseling practice. The personal and immediate experience of the spirit is emphasized as the foundation of any counselor's effective engagement of this issue with clients. Those clients whose encounter with the spirit is sudden and nonconsensual have a particular need for counselors who are knowledgeable of the processes of spiritual emergence and emergency.     

Employment Counselors' Perceptions of Client Needs

This study measures the differences in types of client needs perceived by various categories of counselors, the types of needs they attempted to help their clients gratify, and the needs that were viewed as gratified. Eighteen counselors and 697 clients (or their records) were used in the study. A five-category need classification guideline was used by three outside judges to categorize the list of needs compiled by the counselors; agreement among the judges was such that the classification system was deemed appropriate for this study. Differences in need categories were compared using a chi-square formula and Yates' correction for small frequencies. Significant findings and conclusions are noted and suggestions for further studies are given.