Showing papers in "Journal of Counseling Psychology in 1993"

Work in people's lives: a location for counseling psychologists

Abstract: The career development-vocational psychology literature has been marked by 2 persistent problems: a slow response to new developments in basic areas of psychology, such as developmental psychology, and a lack of representation of populations other than White and middle-class groups as research participants or as foci of theoretical explanation. After a brief discussion of 2 factors that may have contributed to these problems, a rational for a new location for this field is developed.

A causal model of the career orientation and career choice of adolescent women

Abstract: The present study expanded on Fassinger's (1990) model of career choice in college women by testing 2 causal models of career choice and orientation with high school women. Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that the career orientation and career choice of adolescent women were predicted by ability, agentic characteristics, gender role attitudes, and relationship with mother.

Personality and vocational interests: The relation of Holland's six interest dimensions to five robust dimensions of personality

Abstract: Relations between interest-based personality dimensions from Holland's (1985) theory of vocational personalities and 5 robust factors of personality (McCrae & John 1992) were examined. Results for 479 male and 246 female US Navy trainees imply that the 6 theoretical scales of the Vocational Preference Invenory and 20 scales of the NEO Personality Inventory share 2 to 4 significant factors. Social and enterprising vocational preferences were positively correlated with extraversion; investigative and artistic preferences were positively correlated with openness; and conventional preferences were correlated with conscientiousness.

Dimensions of work appraisal: stress, strain, coping, job satisfaction, and negative affectivity

Abstract: Stress, strain, and coping were measured by Osipow & Spokane's (1987) Occupation Stress Inventory with 249 adults in 75 occupations; results supported the validity of the inventory. Higher stress predicted higher strain and lower job satisfaction; the convers was true for coping, although the coping-satisfaction link was weak. In hierarchical regression analyses, predictor variables were gender, age, education, job tenure, negative affectivity, 6 stress easures, and 4 coping measures.

Male counselors' discomfort with gay and HIV-infected clients

Abstract: This study examined male counselors' reactions to gay and human immunodeficiency virus (HlV)-infected clients in light of counselors' homophobia and death anxiety. After completing measures of homophobia and death anxiety, 34 male counselors viewed a videotaped, male client-actor in 1 of 4 conditions: either gay or heterosexual and either HIV negative or HIV positive. The dependent variable, counselor discomfort, was assessed through (a) the ratio of avoidance to approach verbal responses to the taped client, (b) self-reported state anxiety, and (c) recall of certain words used by the client. As hypothesized, counselors experienced greater discomfort with HIV-infected than HIV-negative clients, and counselors' homophobia predicted their discomfort with gay male clients. However, client sexual orientation did not affect counselor discomfort, and death anxiety was unrelated to discomfort with HIV-infected clients. Implications regarding countertransference and counseling were discussed.

Congruence in client-counselor expectations for relationship and the working alliance.

Abstract: The relationship between congruence in client-counselor expectations for relationship and ratings of working alliance was examined. Participants from 25 counseling dyads completed revised version of the Psychotherapy Expectancy Inventory (Berzins 1971) and the Working Alliance Inventory (Horvath & Greenberg 1989) after the 3rd session.

An interpersonal stage model of the therapeutic process.

Abstract: A 3-stage interpersonal model of the successful therapeutic process (high complementarity, low complementarity, high complementarity) has been proposed and supported in the literature. However, recent work on the interpersonal circumplex and its definition of complementarity have called into question the validity of this model. A revised conception of the stage model is proposed. This revision takes into account the moderator variables of social norms and roles, differential interpretation of hostile and friendly behaviors, manifest versus latent communication, and individual differences in adjustment. The revised model differentiates the middle conflict stage into 2 substages: the dissatisfaction substage, characterized by high negative (hostile) complementarity, and the unstable substage, characterized by low complementarity. Interpersonal models of counseling and therapy focus not on the content of treatment dialogue but on the process of the treatment itself. The issues discussed are less important than how the two participants interact around them. Interpersonal models assume that the negotiation of the therapeutic relationship is central to treatment (Carson, 1969; Kiesler, 1982). Thus the focus is placed on how clients negotiate with others to establish relationships to meet their needs. Treatment involves the delineation and alteration of clients' relationship negotiation styles. The primary construct used in conceptualizing the therapy process is complementarity, the extent to which the behaviors of the participants "fit" with or complement each other. The purpose of this article is to review the current interpersonal models of the counseling process, to integrate these models with the research on complementarity, and to propose a revised version of the relationship negotiation view of the therapeutic process. In interpersonal models, successful therapy has been viewed as a three-stage process involving (a) the establishment of a complementary relationship (rapport establishment); (b) the removal of inappropriate (i.e., in keeping with the client's rigid behavioral pattern) complementary interactions (conflict stage); and (c) the establishment of a new, healthier complementary interaction (Dietzel & Abeles, 1975; Kiesler, 1982; Tracey, 1985, 1986a, 1987; Tracey & Ray, 1984). Rapport is accomplished by the therapist adhering to the client's definitions of the relationship, resulting in high levels of complementarity. Then the therapist slowly moves away from the predominantly client-defined relationship (conflict stage; lower levels of complementarity) until the client adopts new, more productive methods of negotiating the relationship with the therapist. In the ending stage, a new, higher level of complementarity (resolution) that re

Node-link mapping: A visual representation strategy for enhancing drug abuse counseling.

Abstract: A multipurpose visual representation strategy, node-link mapping, was taught to randomly selected counselors in 3 methadone maintenance (MM) durg treatment programs. Counselors were trained to use mapping in their individual and group sessions as a communication, thinking and memory aid. MM clients were randomly assigned to either mapping counselors or standard counselors.

Attributes of leisure and work experiences.

Abstract: Essays written by 238 college students and 66 noncollege adults about their most memorable leisure experiences and most meaningful commonly occurring leisure and work experiences were content analyzed for the presence of 46 constructs describing 39 attributes and 7 benefits of the experiences. Significant differences were found in the frequency with which these constructs were used in describing leisure and work activities. Leisure experiences were most frequently characterized as providing enjoyment (intrinsic satisfaction), companionship, novelty, relaxation, aesthetic appreciation, and intimacy. In contrast, work was most frequently described as providing extrinsic rewards, accomplishment, learning, and altruism.

Enhancing a sense of agency through career planning.

Abstract: This study tested the effectiveness of a program for parents to help their adolescent sons and daughters develop a greater sens of agency regarding a career. Through career planning with a parent, adolescents in Grade 12 showed greater career certainty, less indecision, more career salience, and stronger ego identity.

Common Aspects of Object Relations and Self-Representations in Offspring from Disparate Dysfunctional Families.

Abstract: Survey data were collected from 97 adults, drawn from clinical and community settings, who identified themselves as growing up in dysfunctional families. Constructs from object relations, self psychology, and attachment theory were used to select criterion measures. Although the level of family dysfunction was generally high, no significant differences were observed between adult children of alcoholics and adults from families whose dysfunction was not due to substance abuse. Degree of family dysfunction was significantly associated with internalized shame, object relations deficits, and presence of addictions and emotional problems. Contrary to expectation, family dysfunction was negatively correlated with 2 self psychology constructs: goal instability and superiority. The study suggests that clinical interventions based on object relations and attachment theories may be particularly useful with adult children from dysfunction families. The term adult children of alcoholics (ACAs) has become popular with both mental health professionals and the public to denote a group of individuals with presumed shared developmental experiences and adult personality and interpersonal deficits (Fulton & Yates, 1990; Kashubeck & Christensen, 1992). These difficulties are assumed to result from growing up in a home where at least one parent was impaired by alcohol abuse. However, it has become clear that many other adults exhibit similar symptom patterns, although neither of their parents exhibited substance abuse problems. These individuals grew up in families with chronic violence, incest, psychiatric or physical illness, or some other form of dysfunction that rendered parents largely incapable of meeting the emotional needs of their children (Black, 1981). Adult children of dysfunctional families (ACDFs) is the term popularly used to identify this group. Common reports of adjustment difficulty from adults who grew up in families with disparate types of dysfunction suggest that these families may be similar in important ways. Problems that have been attributed to alcohol drinking are more likely due to factors coincident with alcohol abuse, such as maladaptive parenting; chaotic, distressed, or abusive environments; poor communication; and other problems that impair the family's ability to meet the child's physical and

Counseling Psychologists' Perceptions of the Occurrence and Effects of Unrealistic Expectations about Counseling and Psychotherapy among Their Clients.

Abstract: Counseling psychologists working in practice settings were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the occurrence and effects of their clients' unrealistic expectations about counseling. A majority perceived some of their clients as having unrealistically high expectations about the need for concreteness; the likelihood of counselor nurturance, directiveness, and empathy; and the probability of a beneficial outcome. Most responded that some of their clients have unrealistically low expectations about the need for immediacy, motivation, openness, and responsibility, and the likelihood of confrontation . Psychologists view most unrealistic expectations as having a detrimental effect on counseling. Exceptions that can have a facilitative effect on counseling are unrealistically high client expectations about the needs to be motivated and open and to assume personal responsibility and unrealistically low expectations for counselor directiveness. The construct of expectation has figured prominently in theory and research in most areas of psychology. Kulpe (cited in Boring, 1950, pp. 401^02) and Titchener (1909) conceptualized expectancies as cognitively mediated predispositions to behave in a particular way in a given situation. Almost by definition, therefore, expectations are important influencers of perceptual processes (Postman, 1951), judgmental processes (Festinger, 1957; Kelly, 1955), learning (Overmeier, 1988; Spence, 1956), and behavior (Bandura, 1986; Kirsch, 1985). Counseling psychologists have theorized that clients' expectations exert an important influence on their decision to enter into and remain in therapy and that their expectations moderate the effectiveness of therapy. Robinson (1950) described counseling as a one-to-one social learning relationship in which clients' expectations are one major determinant of their behavior in counseling. Frank (1959) theorized that clients' prognostic expectations exert a placebo effect on treatment success. Apfelbaum (1958) argued that clients' expectations influence both the effectiveness of communication within therapy and the effectiveness of therapy. Goldstein (1962) and Garfield (1978), respectively, suggested distinctions between prognostic and participant role expectations and between pretreatment expectations and expectations derived from actual counseling experience; all of these expectations have been theorized to influence the counseling process and outcome.