A global portrait of counselling psychologists’ characteristics,perspectives, and professional behaviors

Counseling psychologists in eight countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) responded to survey questions that focused on their demographics as well as their professional identities, roles, settings, and activities. As well, they were asked about satisfaction with the specialty and the extent to which they endorsed 10 core counseling psychology values. This article reports those results, focusing both on areas in which there were between-country similarities as well as on those for which there were differences. These data provide a snapshot of counseling psychology globally and establish a foundation for the other articles in this special issue of the journal.     

The psychometric properties of the Hebrew version of Cloninger's Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire

The Hebrew Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire was administered to over a thousand individuals in the community, 16–78 years of age. Factor analysis was run first on individual items, and then on the 12 sub-scales described by [Cloninger, C.R., Pryzbeck, T.R., & Svrakic, D.M. (1991). The TPQ: US normative data. Psychological Reports, 69, 1047–1051)]. The factor analyses were restricted to four orthogonal factors in order to attempt confirmation of the corrected four-factor solution [Stallings, M.C., Hewitt, J.K., Cloninger, R.C., Heath, A.C., & Eaves, L.J. (1996). Genetic and environmental structure of the TPQ: three or four temperament dimensions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70 (1), 127–140)]. In the individual item analysis four orthogonal factors recognizable as Novelty Seeking, Reward Dependence, Harm Avoidance and Persistence emerged. However only up to half of the items originally ascribed to each factor loaded sufficiently and exclusively on the appropriate factor. When the 12 sub-scales were entered into factor analysis the four orthogonal factors were produced, and the structure satisfactorily confirmed. A few exceptions to orthogonality were observed. The data were analyzed for sex differences and age effects. Women scored higher than men did on most sub-scales of Harm Avoidance and Reward Dependence. The younger group (up to 21 years of age) scored higher on Novelty Seeking and Reward Dependence and lower on Harm Avoidance than the older group, but no sex by age interaction was detected. Preliminary normative Israeli data are supplied, and implications of the group differences discussed.     

Freud's Leonardo: psychobiography and autobiography of genius.

In his creation of a psychobiography of one genius and the hidden autobiographic analysis of another, Freud exemplifies what he described in the study: "Kindly nature has given the artist the ability to express his most secret mental impulses, which are hidden even from himself, by means of the works that he creates" (p. 107).     

The Effect of Predicate Matching on Perceived Understanding and Factual Recall

Grinder and Bandler (1976) asserted that if therapists communicate with clients using verbal predicates that match the modality of the clients' primary representational system (PRS), it will be easier for the clients to understand the therapist and to believe that they are understood. In this study we investigated the relationship between predicate matching and understanding. Participants (N=99) listened to a recorded narrative under either a “matched” or “mismatched” experimental condition. Participants' objective understanding (factual recall) and subjective understanding (feelings of having understood) were assessed. The results weakly supported a claim of enhanced accuracy of understanding on one measure of objective understanding, and they suggested greater understanding and recall for visual PRS participants.     

Discussion of Lewis Aron’s Paper for Dialogues

Lewis Aron’s creative paper is a psychoanalytic version of a Picaresque tale. Lew, a newly born psychoanalyst, and Al, his analysand companion, go their way together from birthday to birthday. On the journey they meet up with gurus from diverse places and theories. Each meeting adds the birth of a new perspective. My discussion takes up the richness and depth of Lew’s passage through life as the analyst of Al and Al’s passage through analytic insight.