Looking Forward Via Hindsight: A Rationale for Reviewing Our Ideological Roots

This article points to a lack of historical studies and posits a rationale for historical study of personalities, events, and ideas in the growth of guidance and counseling. The rationale proceeds from a focus on definitions of history through a treatise on historical methodology and narrows to reasons and implications for historical studies in the social sciences, especially in counseling and guidance. The purpose of this rationale is to stimulate and refine current developments in the field through increased attention to pioneers, their ideas, and efforts in contributing to the development of guidance and counseling.     

Group counseling

This article reviews the major concerns of group counseling and differentiates among group guidance, group counseling, and group therapy. It also evaluates the research status of group counseling. Finally, the author presents implications for the future of this 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.     

Career support for migrants: Transformation or adaptation?

The complex interfaces created by migration not only challenge core beliefs about the purpose of career guidance and counseling but also about the precise nature and level of the support required for migrants. However, the issue has had little academic attention. While traditional theories informing the practice of career guidance and counseling implicitly reflect a commitment to social equality, they were developed in relatively homogenous Western capitalist contexts that were strongly individualized, masculine, secular, action and future focused. As career guidance and counseling services in more individualized countries seek to meet the needs of a growing number of clients from more collectivist cultures, the universal relevance of such models is increasingly open to challenge. This article explores three core challenges posed by migration for the theory and practice of career guidance and counseling. The first relates to the very purpose of these types of services for migrants; the second, to the way in which migration requires a realignment of the relationship of theory with practice; and the third relates to the need to redefine service delivery models for this client group. The extent to which notions of “quality” in services are culturally dependent will also be considered, together with the potential for general service improvements being stimulated by the provision of high quality services for migrants.     

A Review of School Counseling Outcome Research: Implications for Practice

In this review, the authors summarize school counseling outcome research published between 1988 and 1995. Gysbers and Henderson's (1994) comprehensive developmental guidance model served as the organizing model through which the status of empirical literature regarding school counseling is examined. Results indicated that research focused more on remediation activities as compared to preventive interventions. This review found tentative support for career planning, group counseling, social skill training activities, and peer counseling. Practical implications and future research direction are drawn from these conclusions.     

A Structural Blueprint for Group Facilitators: Three Group Modalities

This article provides a conceptual model, typology, or blueprint to unify and more clearly understand the spectrum of task-, socio-, and psycho-group processes used by guidance and counseling personnel. The authors provide a structure for group leaders to follow within their various group forms or modalities.     

Norman C. Gysbers: A Proponent of Comprehensive School Guidance Programs

Norman C. Gysbers has been a major contributor to the field of counseling and guidance for more than 30 years, not only through scholarship, but also through leadership. Gysbers is best known for his work in comprehensive school guidance and for his many national leadership positions. In this article, he discusses both his life and the evolution of counseling and school guidance programs.     

Self-blame, self-efficacy, and adjustment to abortion

The causal impact of attributions and coping self-efficacy on adjustment to abortion was examined. Two hundred and eighty-three women were randomly assigned prior to their abortion to 1 of 3 counseling interventions: 1 designed to alter attributions for unwanted pregnancy (ATT-INT), 1 designed to raise coping expectations (EXP-INT), or a control (standard counseling) group. Depression, mood, anticipated consequences, and physical complaints were assessed postabortion. Women in the ATT-INT or EXP-INT group were better adjusted immediately postabortion than women in the control group. The EXP-INT group was also less depressed than the ATT-INT group. Three individual difference factors were also related to better adjustment: high coping self-efficacy, low self-character blame, and low other-blame. Self-efficacy also predicted adjustment 3 weeks postabortion. Implications for theories of adjustment to major life events, therapeutic interventions to assist coping with such events, and public policy on abortion are discussed.     

Counseling today's veterans: a program and its implications

The need for improved counseling and guidance services has emerged as one of the most crucial aspects in the myriad of problems faced by the Vietnam war era veteran. This article focuses on the interagency overseas counseling thrust launched by the federal government in 1971 and designed to mitigate the debilitating effects of the civilian reentry crisis experienced by veterans. The overseas counseling program of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, operating in Europe, the Far East, and Vietnam, was organized and formerly administered by the author and is highlighted here because of its implications for counseling and guidance.     

Guidance and Counseling in the Elementary School: Its Theoretical Base

Although many proponents of elementary counseling and guidance have stressed the preventive, developmental approach, an examination of job practices shows some inconsistency between the approach as stated and its implementation. This discrepancy is traced to the failure of elementary counseling and guidance to develop a theoretical base that relates guidance and counseling processes to the process of child development in the early childhood years. This research-based article attempts to identify the problem further, to examine its origins, and to find a solution to it. The author shows how a communication-theory approach could bridge this gap and offers some suggestions for its implementation and use.     

The Interface Between Countertransference and Projective Identification in a Case Presented to Peer Supervision

This case report, presented to a supervision group, is a prenatal genetic counseling casethat caused me a great deal of emotional discomfort as the events unfolded. Thediscomfort originated during my first meeting with the couple for routine preamniocentesiscounseling and continued through later encounters. This case illustrates the process ofworking through countertransference and projective identification issues that may arise ingenetic counseling.     

The case for guidance: testimony before Congress

The author, as a member of APGA's Federal Relations Committee, recently presented testimony on counseling and, guidance services before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Labor, Health, Education and Welfare and Related Agencies. This testimony, on behalf of APGA and ASCA, concerned fiscal year 1973 appropriations for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Title III (ESEA, III)—Counseling, Guidance and Testing. This article is drawn from the author's testimony and is directed toward reporting some of the positive outcomes of counseling and guidance, the dilemma of cutbacks in services, and the need for substantial expansion of fiscal and. personal support for counseling and guidance.     

Fu tao: guidance in Taiwan seeks a value orientation

The guidance movement in Taiwan, only 20 years old, has paralleled ours in developing from vocational-educational advisement toward personal counseling. There is a basic conflict between traditional Chinese culture grounded in Confucian ideals and rules of behavior, and the highly individualized value orientation on which the counseling movement is predicated. This conflict leads Chinese guidance workers to search their tradition for a more appropriate balance between individual freedom and social responsibility. This article is a cross-cultural comparison exploring some critical implications for the value orientation of our Western democratic society and the counseling movement.     

Career Education for Persons With Handicaps

Handicapped youth and adults still encounter serious problems assimilating successfully into today's rapidly changing society. After tracing the major events that have increased the momentum of career education for persons with handicaps, Brolin and Gysbers advocate a life-centered curriculum approach, which focuses on 22 skills essential for successful community living and working. They recommend that counselors assume specific responsibilities in this approach and outline competencies necessary to carry out guidance and counseling activities for persons with handicaps at four phases of career education. The article includes examples of successfully operating career education programs and concludes with a challenge to the profession.     

Information retrieval systems in guidance

If information retrieval systems are to facilitate the dissemination of information for certain guidance functions, it is important that the factors which influence the use of such systems be understood. This article discusses information retrieval processes and the components of an information system. It also describes a number of currently operating systems which have direct relevance for guidance and counseling, and it stresses that in developing and using these systems, individual counselors, large guidance-oriented units, and guidance and counseling professional associations all have a vital role to play in this development.     

Let's close the confidentiality gap

An examination of the interface between the law of privileged communication and the professional standards of confidentiality reveals a considerable gap between what the law is and what counseling and guidance personnel believe it is. The nature of the law is discussed, and evidence of disagreement with and misunderstanding of the law by counseling and guidance personnel is presented. Several recommendations are made to close the gap by bringing knowledge and attitude of counseling and guidance personnel into agreement with the law as well as modifying the law to reflect the needs of clients, counselors, and society.     

Guidance and Educational Opportunity: The German Perspective

This article is based on information about the status of guidance and counseling in German education acquired by the author during his 1977 summer Fulbright Fellowship to the Federal Republic of Germany. Menacker identifies some points of comparison regarding the roles of guidance and counseling in the American and German education systems. The less developed German educational-guidance system is used to shed light on the nature of guidance contributions made by the American system.     

Systems design in the development of counseling and guidance programs

This article discusses problems in developing counseling and guidance programs. The systems approach is presented as an approach founded on scientifically based principles which counselors might consider in planning effective and efficient programs. The systems concept, analysis and synthesis, systems design, behavioral objectives, feedback, and flowcharting are briefly explained, followed by the application of the systems technique for a generalized model for the establishment, operation, and maintenance of a counseling and guidance program.     

Vocational Services for Older Adults or “I Want to Work,But …”

The need for counseling and guidance services for the older job seeker has been stated and described in employment and counseling literature. This article describes one program designed to meet that need through 12-hour job readiness workshops, mini-workshops, and an employment information showcase.