The purpose of this quasi-counseling analogue study was to determine the extent to which perceptions of counselors' nonverbal gestures may be influenced by subjective factors on the part of the perceivers. In a 2 X 2 mixed repeatedmeasures design, 24 college freshmen met individually with an interviewer for 15 minutes each. Subjects' global impressions of the interviewer were manipulated during the interviews to produce impressions either of empathy or of preoccupation. Eight standardized nonverbal gestures-four empathic and four preoccupied-were embedded in each interview. A videotape-assisted recall procedure was used to obtain subjects' ratings of the interviewer's behavior at the times of occurrence of each of the eight cues. Results indicate that the overwhelming determinant of subjects' impressions of the interviewer at the times the embedded cues were emitted was the subjects' global impressions. Implications for counselor training and practice are discussed.

No abstract

Family factors involved in the failure of psychotherapy for some adolescents and young adults are explored. These treatment failures are distinguished by expulsion of the therapist(s) and by reunification of the previously adversarial patient and parents. Such abrupt terminations may occur when treatment challenges the family's habitual image and understanding of the identified patient. The revolution against therapy appears to result from: (a) an intolerable threat to the family's heretofore stable delineation of the patient, along with (b) the therapist's failure to empathically engage the parents and ease their commitment to that delineation. It is shown how a parallel process can lead to failure in individual, adult psychotherapy. When therapy threatens the patient's familiar but dystonic self-image, and calls for change to a new image that is discordant with the family image of him/her, separation anxiety may precipitate a regressive flight from treatment. Clinical implications are discussed.

No abstract

No abstract