Overcoming Obstacles: Nontraditional Jobs for Women

This article identifies some of the obstacles in the nontraditional career choice and implementation process of women. Counselor bias and client attitudes are crucial factors, as are physical strength, co-worker relations, and mathematical ability. The authors suggest ideas for neutralizing these obstacles and maximizing the chances for success, and recommend areas for counselor training and future research.     

A Career Awareness Program for High School Dropouts

The Career Awareness Program for High School Dropouts was an experimentally funded project to determine the effect of a concentrated vocational assessment and vocational counseling program on the employability of high school dropouts. Various aspects of CAP included individual and group counseling, vocational-educational assessment and diagnosis, job attitude training, vocational guidance, and career exploration. The results of a follow-up survey showed that approximately 60% of the dropouts were still employed six months after completion of the program. In addition, the dropouts reported benefiting from the program through increased awareness of their own needs, abilities, and interests as well as through better awareness of the types of skills and behaviors desired by employers.     

Counseling Student Response To Affect Level

This research was designed to investigate whether 42 counseling students would respond differently to identical client statements in which the degree of affect was varied. Students viewed four people, each presenting four one-minute videotaped stimulus vignettes. There were four female high-affect statements, four female neutral-affect statements, four male high-affect statements, and four male neutral-affect statements. A 2 × 2 × 2 × 4 analysis of variance with repeated measures on the last measure was used to analyze the data, and Newman-Keuls post hoc comparisons were done. The analysis indicated that the affect level had a significant effect on the degree to which the counselor judged that the client needed help. There was also a difference in the ratings of female and male counselors and a difference in counselor response to female and male clients.     

Leisure Counseling and Consultation

Leisure counseling and consultation is a fairly new counseling specialty that is emerging from the field of recreation and volunteer placement while borrowing heavily from vocational counseling models and techniques. After presenting a brief history of the development of the field, the authors describe a working model of one approach to leisure counseling. The article concludes with a prediction that the field will move from its present focus on leisure alone to an integration of leisure with vocational counseling and planning.     

Licensure in the helping professions: anatomy of an issue

The licensing of psychologists is not generally a concern of counselors, counselor educators, or supervisors. However, with the enactment of new licensing laws such as the one described here, an issue is emerging that members of the counseling professions should not leave unattended. Through ignorance or complacency, we may contribute to the demise of the counseling professions as self-regulating groups. The authors examine this matter here and offer some recommendations for action.     

Undergraduates as campus mental health workers

This study evaluated, first, the effectiveness of group experiences in improving the interpersonal functioning of college freshmen and, second, the difference in effectiveness of group discussions led by undergraduate dormitory advisers (with consultation) and by psychology graduate students. A variety of measures of interpersonal behavior was used. Results show that freshmen in group discussions improved in their interpersonal relationships, especially as measured by a sociometric form. Members of groups led by graduate students showed slightly more improvement than those in groups led by dormitory advisers. Differences in group process were also found. Results suggest that indigenous subprofessionals can promote growth on the campus.     

The illusion of pre-enrollment counseling

Concern about attrition of college students has often led to recommendations that more counseling be supplied to entering freshmen. In the present study, student response to pre-enrollment counseling programs suggests that freshmen are able to consider only informational aspects of their entering status. The number of students requesting pre-enrollment counseling varied inversely with the amount of such information available outside of counseling conferences. As long as universities make it incumbent upon the student to adjust to the institution, the student who is not emotionally “bound” to attending a particular college will be seen as needing counseling although the opportunity for such counseling will be illusory. Institutional changes, as well as student changes, must be encouraged if the opportunity for counseling is to become a reality.