Two studies explored how counselor and client agreement on the therapy alliance, at the beginning of treatment, influenced early session evaluations and symptom change. Unlike prior studies that operationalized alliance convergence as either a profile similarity correlation or a difference score, the present study used polynomial regression and…

This study sought to assess the association of client- and therapist-rated real relationship with each other and with the outcome of brief psychotherapy. It also aimed to determine whether changes over time in perceptions of the real relationship and increasing convergence between clients' and therapists' ratings of the real relationship were…

This study drew upon the knowledge base of member practitioners of the American Psychological Association (APA) to develop a taxonomy of helpful and harmful practices for treatment with boys and men. Four hundred seventy-five APA-member practitioners solicited from practice-related divisions provided responses to 4 open-ended questions about…

A recurring question in multicultural counseling is whether client-counselor similarity on sociodemographic characteristics benefits counseling. A related issue is how counselor orientation to diversity relates to counseling process and outcome, both as a main effect and in interaction with counselor-client sociodemographic match. This…

Self-report instruments of psychological symptoms are increasingly used in counseling centers but rely on rigorous evaluation of their clinical validity. Three studies reported here (total N = 26,886) investigated the validity of the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-62 (CCAPS-62; Locke et al., 2011) as an assessment and…

In this study, the authors investigated whether psychotherapist bias related to client bisexuality is most likely to occur with respect to judgments about stereotype-relevant clinical issues. Participants were 108 psychotherapists who read a fictitious intake report about a male client who was portrayed as heterosexual, gay, or bisexual. Client…

Interviews were conducted with therapists (N = 12) nominated by peers as especially effective in working with clients with adult interpersonal problems. Open-ended questions asked how these therapists would approach 2 adult clients described in brief vignettes as having high attachment avoidance or anxiety. A coding team used a grounded theory…

Identified categories of counselor self-talk and explored possible dimensions underlying categories. Counselors (N=38) conducted interviews with female client and then completed stimulated-recall, thought-listing exercise. Trained judges categorized resulting 768 self-talk statements into 14 categories with 4 largest being client-focused…

Examined attitudes toward stepparents and stepchildren, based on the responses of 256 female and 119 male counselors to written descriptions of an adult and adolescent. Results showed inexperienced counselors viewed stepparents and stepchildren as less potent, active, and well-adjusted than parents and children in nuclear families. (Author/JAC)

Asian Americans drop out of mental health treatment at a high rate. This problem could be addressed by enhancing therapists' multicultural competence and by examining clients' cultural attitudes that may affect the counseling process. In the present study, we used a video analogue design with a sample of 113 Asian American college students to…

Compared perceived structure of vocational interest fields of 29 career counselors with structures represented by circular-hexagonal model (CM) and hierarchical model (HM). Found counselors' grouping of Holland's six types and Roe's eight fields were compatible with both structures. Further investigation showed counselors' perceived structure of…

Rated counselor responses to 21 widely varying client statements on eight dimensions, and compared responses by experience level. Found differences on the dimensions of dominance, immediacy, meeting client's demands, verbosity, and confrontation, and differences in flexibility regarding dominance, meeting client's demands and confrontation, across…

Used the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) to measure the perspectives of 17 novice counselors and their 72 clients on 942 individual counseling sessions. Results suggested novice counselors' judgments of session depth and value may bear little relation to their clients' evaluations, but counselors' comfort and mood were moderately…

The major result of the study is that the subjects' self experiencing increased significantly during the focusing periods even though the experimenter's empathy, warmth, and genuineness remained low. (Author)

The results of the study question the widsom of using testimonials by counselors as support for the positive effects of new recording methods and for the absence of adverse effects. (Author)