In attempting to understand their own behaviors and that of others, people make different attributions about causes. During the process of supervision, supervisors and counselor trainees make many attributions, including those about client, trainee, and supervisor behavior. A supervision analogue was used to examine attributional processes in…

The feelings of therapist and patient toward each other are important factors in the therapeutic relationship. This study investigated how beginning therapists perceive and are perceived by clients. After initial counseling sessions with college student clients (N=133), six psychotherapy practicum trainees at a university counseling center…

While some new journals for psychotherapists are beginning to address practical decisions important for attracting clients and succeeding in the business of psychotherapy, the literature which might provide empirical evidence upon which to base such decisions still lags. A study was undertaken to provide practitioners with further information and…

Clients' causal explanations for their psychological difficulties have received significant notice in the research literature. In contrast, few studies have focused on the attributions formulated by counselors regarding their clients' difficulties. Attributional approaches to counseling suggest that both client and counselor attributions can…

Theorists and therapists have become increasingly attentive to the role of interpersonal behaviors that facilitate or hinder the ability of the counselor to exert influence over the client during counseling. A study was conducted to examine the impact of a counselor's preference that clients not smoke, client stress levels, client sex, and…

This study attempted to develop psychometric properties of the Sexual Orientation Counselor Competency Scale (SOCCS), an instrument used to assess the awareness, skills, and knowledge of counselors working with the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) population. A sample of 287 undergraduates, master-level and doctoral-level students, and counseling…

One set of counselor behaviors that has been highly investigated over recent years has been the social influence behaviors. Despite the considerable research interest in social influence theory as it relates to counseling, there has been little attention to the demonstration of the presence or absence of such behavioral skills as expertness,…

Most research on premature termination from therapy has focused on client attitudes. This study examined therapists' attitudes toward their own behavior and toward their clients at intake in relation to premature termination. Premature termination was studied after different numbers of sessions to determine the relationship of therapist attitudes…

Efforts to enhance the effectiveness of cross-cultural interventions have emphasized the need for counselors to assess their own as well as their client's cultural value systems. To assess cultural world views, the Cultural Attitudes Repertory Technique (CART), which examines the content and structure of an individual's personal system of cultural…

Research on the cognitive activity of clinicians during the initial interview has revealed that mental health professionals are often guided by social stereotypes of attractiveness in their choice of patients for intensive individual or group psychotherapy. Specifically, YAVIS patients (young, attractive, verbal, intelligent, successful) are…

Previous research has emphasized the significant negative correlation between counselor effectiveness and dogmatism, or closemindedness. To reduce levels of dogmatism in counselor trainees, a program was developed and tested at Southwest Texas State University. The new course, "Guidance to Meet the Needs of Multicultural Students," gave counseling…

The 1981 study ascertained whether the self-concept of 66 camp staff from 2 Wisconsin camps changed more than a control group of 18 college students attending summer school; if differences in self-concept were based on a particular characteristic (age, gender, staff position, years at camp); and in what ways, if any, self-concept of camp staff…

High school guidance counselors' perceptions of the quality of The State University of New York College at Brockport were compared for 1982 and 1985. Quality assessments were also made for two university centers, nine university colleges, two agricultural and technical colleges, and two private colleges. The 1985 sample consisted of 839…