Counsellor training: An evaluation of the effectiveness of a residential outdoor pursuits activity weeked on the personal development of trainee counsellors

Trainee counsellors were taken on an outdoor development weekend training course, organised as a component of a two year part-time professional counsellor training course. The weekend was held during the final term of the second year of the course at an outdoor pursuits centre in the Lake District. The weekend's activities included canoeing, abseiling, onenteering, hill walking, rope work and climbing as well as other adventure exercises. Attendance at the weekend was compulsoy for all the 17 students on the course. This training weekend was an innovation in counsellor training and therefore a pilot study was designed to evaluate its effectiveness in making a contribution to the overall development of the trainees as counsellors. The study used a same subject experimental design and data was collected pre and post the weekend. The assessment procedure adopted for the purpose of this research included the use of repertoy grids and a series of questions with analogue scales for responses. There was some evidence to suggest that as a result of the weekend the participants experienced an increase in their self esteem, changes in their level of self confidence, felt more co-operative towards their fellow students, felt more helped by and helpful towards others and had an increased awareness of their competitiveness and stamina. It was concluded that the weekend made some contribution to the personal development of counsellors in training, particularly with regard to team building, co-operation and group cohesion.     

How honest do counsellors dare to be in the supervisory relationship?: An exploratory study

A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which psychodynamic counsellors feel able to disclose sensitive issues in supervision. Ninety-six counsellors in supervision responded to a questionnaire that asked about supervision arrangements, the supervisory working alliance, and the likelihood of disclosing issues such as erotic feelings towards clients and discomfort with the supervisor. Results showed that supervisees were likely to disclose more in individual rather than in collective supervision, when their supervisor was someone whom they themselves had chosen rather than had allocated to them, and when they were supervised independently of the setting in which they counselled rather than in-house. There was a positive correlation between the quality of the supervisory working alliance as experienced by the supervisee and the extent of his or her disclosure. Implications of counsellors feeling inhibited from disclosing particular issues in supervision, and the impact on the quality of their work with clients, are discussed.     

Full-time studying and long-term relationships: Make or break for mature students?

Results are reported of a 2-year longitudinal study looking at the effects of full-time degree study on full-time mature students who were also in long-term committed relationships. The findings from the first year of the research suggested that while there were particular stresses for students with domestic responsibilities; the single most buffering effect was support from the student's partner. The follow-up study in the second year confirmed these findings, but also suggested that there was a decrease in the amount of partner support experienced in the second year. The implications for counselling and student support services are discussed.     

Increased regional cerebral glucose metabolism and semantic memory performance in Alzheimer's disease: A pilot double blind transdermal nicotine positron emission tomography study

Nicotinic receptor dysfunction and impaired semantic memory occur early in Alzheimer's disease patients (AD). Previous research implied that nicotine's ability to enhance alertness, arousal, and cognition in a number of nonclinical populations was a function of its ability to stimulate CNS nicotinic cholinergic receptors. In this study it was hypothesized that transdermal administration of nicotine would increase both regional cerebral glucose metabolism (rCMRglc) and semantic memory (as assessed by verbal fluency). Two mild AD and two elderly controls underwent positron emission tomography scanning during a double blind nicotinic agonist verbal fluency challenge procedure. rCMRglc increases occurred in both AD patients, but not controls. In the two AD patients, verbal fluency scores increased by an average of 17%. One elderly control's verbal fluency increased, and the other decreased. These findings suggest that nicotine's effect on metabolism and verbal fluency is due to its ability to stimulate the cholinergic system.     

Effects of inadmissible Evidence on the Decisions of Simulated Jurors: A Moral Dilemma

In a 2 × 3 design, simulated jurors received either weak or strong evidence against a defendant in a murder case. Within each evidence condition, subjects were given either additional evidence ruled admissible, additional evidence ruled inadmissible, or no additional evidence. Results indicated that ( a ) jurors were biased by inadmissible evidcnce in the weak-evidence but not in the strong-evidence condition, ( b ) strong evidence resulted in more guilty verdicts than did weak evidence, ( c ) confidence in verdict was influenced by strength of evidence, and ( d ) confidence of guilt was positively correlated with severity of punishment. Implications of the results are discussed within the context of the judicial process.     

The dimensions of career and work orientation in college women

The purpose of this study was to clarify the meaning of the construct, career orientation. Fourteen presumed measures of career orientation as well as Super's Work Values Inventory were administered to college women. Analysis of the relationships among these variables identified two relatively independent clusters. The first cluster most closely approximated the usual definition of career orientation. Career-oriented women were found to be highly career motivated and perceived the career role as primary in their adult lives. The second cluster was called work orientation. This orientation characterized women with well-defined occupational aspirations who placed a high value on both the career role and marriage-family responsibilities in their future. Work-oriented women tended to choose traditionally feminine occupations in contrast to the career-oriented women whose aspirations included higher level and less traditional occupations.     

TRAINING GENERALIZED RECEPTIVE PREPOSITIONS IN RETARDED CHILDREN1

Three retarded children were trained, using prompting and reinforcement procedures, to respond correctly to three categories of prepositional requests: “put the___ next to the___”, “put the___under the___”, and “put the___on top of the___”. Training sessions were alternated with probe sessions throughout the study. During training, a child was trained to respond to one request (e.g., “put the doll next to the cup”); during probing, the child was tested for generalization of this training to untrained requests. Responses to untrained requests were never prompted nor reinforced. The results showed that, as requests from one category were trained, the children's responses to the untrained requests of that category became increasingly correct. As discriminations among two or more categories were trained, the children's responses to the untrained requests of those categories also became increasingly correct. Thus, the methods employed appear to be successful in training generalized receptive discrimination among prepositional categories and possibly can be utilized in training other generalized receptive language skills.     

Processing of sequentially presented letters

The effect on the number of letters S can report of the duration of each sequentially presented letter was compared with that of processing time, defined as the time from the onset of a letter to the onset of the next letter. Four Ss were each shown 1250 common English words, from four to eight letters long, one letter at a time. Each letter acted as a visual noise field for the preceding letter. The duration of each letter and the interval between letters was varied independently. The S reported the letters he saw after each word was displayed. It was found that the processing time (onset to onset) predicted the number of letters correctly reported, regardless of the partition between on time and off time. A calculation was made of the number of milliseconds of on plus off time that are needed to ensure correct report of each letter. This time was independent of the duration of the processing time, but was positively correlated with the number of letters in the word. This correlation is probably in part artifactual, so that no claim can be made that it takes longer to process a letter of a long as compared to a short word.