The Counseling Psychologist 

About: The Counseling Psychologist is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Counseling psychology & Counselor education. It has an ISSN identifier of 0011-0000. Over the lifetime, 2438 publications have been published receiving 98551 citations. The journal is also known as: Counseling Psychologist.

A Guide to Conducting Consensual Qualitative Research

Abstract: The authors discuss the components of consensual qualitative research (CQR) using open-ended questions to gather data, using words to describe phenomena, studying a few cases intensively, recognizing the importance of context, using an inductive analytic process, using a team and making decisions by consensus, using auditors, and verifying results by systematically checking against the raw data. The three steps for conducting CQR are developing and coding domains, constructing core ideas, and developing categories to describe consistencies across cases (cross analysis). Criteria for evaluating CQR are trustworthiness of the method, coherence of the results, representativeness of the results to the sample, testimonial validity, applicability of the results, and replicability across samples. Finally, the authors discuss implications for research, practice, and training.

Scale Development Research: A Content Analysis and Recommendations for Best Practices

Abstract: The authors conducted a content analysis on new scale development articles appearing in the Journal of Counseling Psychology during 10 years (1995 to 2004). The authors analyze and discuss characteristics of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis procedures in these scale development studies with respect to sample characteristics, factorability, extraction methods, rotation methods, item deletion or retention, factor retention, and model fit indexes. The authors uncovered a variety of specific practices that were at variance with the current literature on factor analysis or structural equation modeling. They make recommendations for best practices in scale development research in counseling psychology using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.

Qualitative Research Designs: Selection and Implementation

Abstract: Counseling psychologists face many approaches from which to choose when they conduct a qualitative research study. This article focuses on the processes of selecting, contrasting, and implementing five different qualitative approaches. Based on an extended example related to test interpretation by counselors, clients, and communities, this article provides a detailed discussion about five qualitative approaches— narrative research; case study research; grounded theory; phenomenology; and participatory action research—as alternative qualitative procedures useful in understanding test interpretation. For each approach, the authors offer perspectives about historical origins, definition, variants, and the procedures of research.

A Brief Guide to Structural Equation Modeling

Abstract: To complement recent articles in this journal on structural equation modeling (SEM) practice and principles by Martens and by Quintana and Maxwell, respectively, the authors offer a consumer’s guide to SEM. Using an example derived from theory and research on vocational psychology, the authors outline six steps in SEM: model specification, identification, data preparation and screening, estimation, evaluation of fit, and modification. In addition, the authors summarize the debates surrounding some aspects of SEM (e.g., acceptable sample size, fit indices), with recommendations for application. They also discuss the need for considering and testing alternative models and present an example, with details on determining whether alternative models result in a significant improvement in fit to the observed data.

Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being

Abstract: It is my thesis in this paper that we should re-examine and re-evaluate that very special way of being with another person which has been called empathic. I believe we tend to give too little consideration to an element which is extremely important both for the understanding of personality dynamics and for effecting changes in personality and behavior. It is one of the most delicate and powerful ways we have of using ourselves. In spite of all that has been said and written on this topic, it is a way of being which is rarely seen in full bloom in a relationship. I will start with my own somewhat faltering history in relation to this topic. Personal Vacillations Very early in my work as a therapist I discovered that simply listening to my client, very attentively, was an important way of being helpful. So when I was in doubt as to what I should do, in some active way, I listened. It seemed surprising to me that such a passive kind of interaction could be so useful. A little later a social worker, who had a background of Rankian training, helped me to learn that the most effective approach was to listen for the feelings, the emotions whose patterns could be discerned through the client's words. I believe she was the one who suggested that the best response was to "reflect" these feelings back to the client-- "reflect" becoming in time a word which made me cringe. But at that time it improved my work as therapist, and I was grateful. Then came my transition to a full-time university position where, with the help of students, I was at last able to scrounge equipment for recording our interviews. I cannot exaggerate the excitement of our learnings as we clustered about the machine which enabled us to listen to ourselves, playing over and over some puzzling point at which the interview clearly went wrong, or those moments in which the client moved significantly forward. (I still regard this as the one best way of learning to improve oneself as a therapist.) Among many lessons from these recordings, we came to realize that listening to feelings and "reflecting" them was a vastly complex process. We discovered that we could pinpoint the therapist response which caused a fruitful flow of significant expression to become superficial and unprofitable. Likewise we were able to spot the remark which turned a client's dull and desultory talk into a focused selfexploration. In such a context of learning it became quite natural to lay more stress upon the content of the therapist response than upon the empathic quality of the listening. To this extent we became heavily conscious of the techniques which the counselor or therapist was using. We became expert in analyzing, in very minute detail, the ebb and flow of the process in each interview, and