This article describes several cautions and recommendations in regard to the use of skill-training programs. Whether the value of skill training is being overestimated is explored through a discussion of the process of skill training, skills vs. self as instrument, and perceptual psychology. Recall (1972)) and are being offered to a wide range of professionals, as well as nonprofessionals. The programs generally have in common the premise that the process of relating interpersonally can be broken down or defined in terms of specific behaviors or skills, each of which can be acquired or "sharpened" during training. While the present authors recognize that an abundance of evidence exists supporting the results of skill-training programs, we are still left with considerable questions and doubts concerning their general or longrange effectiveness. It has been our experience (both as trainees and as trainers), that not all individuals respond equally well to training, that not all skills are equally "trainable," that not all approaches to training are consistently effective, and that trained skills frequently do not transfer to nontraining settings. These observations lead us to further wonder whether the ultimate value of skill training is perhaps being overestimated. In other words, do t'he skills essential for effective communication consist of behavioral expressions of certain attitudes and values that are not so

PROBLEJIThere are :i growing number of studies(8' y . I ? , 1 3 , 1 4 ) suggesting that the therapeutic conditions of accurate empathy, nonpossessive warmth, and genuineness are of major significance in psychotherapy, counseling, teaching, and other interactions aimed at inducing human change. These findings seem to hold reasonably well for psychotherapy ivith adolescents and adults whose range of disturbance varies from mild neurosis, delinquency or psychosis. They also tend to hold for nonprofessional attempts to change clients in counseling and for counselors in both vocational and school contacts. The present study is aimed at extending this line of research to child therapy.The issue of whether or not the therapeutic conditions of AE, S P W , and GES are significant for child therapy is a real one. By its very nature, child' therapy is considerably less verbal than are therapeutic attempts with adults or adolescents. Since child therapy, involving a great deal of non-verbal communication, differs in a number of nxys, this study was an effort to confirm or disconfirm t,he importance of therapeutic conditions in child therapy. PROCEDCHETherapists. 16 practicing child psychotherapists affiliated with one of two psychiatric training facilities located in the Southwest participated. Four were Ph.D. level clinicnl child psychologists serving on the faculty, 6 were child psychiatry residents in their third year of residency, and 6 were clinical psychology interns. The 4 Ph.D. level clinical psychologists, for the most part, represented eclectic points of view with one leaning towards a psychoanalytic approach and another leaning toward a client-centered :ipproach. The G clinical psychology interns were quite eclectic in orientat,ion. Thr 0 child psychiatry residents were i n their third year of analytically-oriented training.('hild Therapy Patients. The 16 patients averaged 9 years and 3 months of age. The degree of disturbance was mild :md the patients were diagnosed as emotional in nature, primarily neurosis or character disorder. Patients showing active psychosis or mental retardation were excluded.Video T a p ? Recordings an.d Ratings. The 16 therapists each saw one child for the present study. To assess the levels of accurate empathy, non-possessive warmth, and genuineness, T r u a~'~. '. 5 . 6 , earlier developed scales used on the video tape recordings of child therapy obtained on Ampex S o . VRl5OO video recording machine. Three 5-minute samples were taken from each of two regularly scheduled therapy sessions one week apart for each case. The &minute video tape samples were taken a t the 20th to 25th minute, the 30th to 35th minute, and the 40th to 45th minute of each session. The extent to which AE, XPW, and GEN were present in the 96 total samples was rated by 3 raters using the AE scale, 3 separate raters using the S P W scale, and a third set of 3 raters using the G E S scale. Procedures for rating have been described elsewhere(10). Ebel(' ) intraclass correlations *The present study was sup orted in pa...

Investigated the extent to which 6 counselors at Canadian institutions rate problems of vocational choice, college routine, and adjustment to self and others as appropriate for discussion in counseling through a replication of R. E. Warman's study (see 36:1 and 36:5). As hypothesized, the results were consistent with those obtained by Warman in that significant differences were found among centers on the rated appropriateness of the 1st 2 problem areas. Contrary to the hypothesis, adjustment problems were not rated significantly different among the 21 centers employed in the study. This discrepant result is discussed in light of the relative smallness of Canadian institutions when compared with their United States counterparts.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if levels of accurate empathy, nonpossessive warmth, and genuineness provided by counselors in the initial counseling interview had continuing or terminating effects for normal persons, compared to the effects found with severe chronic schizophrenics. The results indicated that empathy ratings for continuing clients was significantly higher than for those who left.

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