Online counseling is a growing area of clinical work with relatively little empirical evidence about the kind of clients that use the medium, advantages and disadvantages of online counseling, and satisfaction with relationships and treatment service. Sociodemographics were collected on 81 self-selected clients using online counseling, and self-reported therapeutic alliance and satisfaction with online counseling were assessed for comparison to past studies of clients using traditional face-to-face counseling. Online clients were predominantly female, were already regular Internet users, and enjoyed the convenience and anonymity of the service. They were satisfied with their relationships and treatment online but not as satisfied as clients who have undergone traditional face-to-face counseling. The main disadvantage, the loss of nonverbal information, was offset by the advantage of anonymity when sharing shameful personal information. Research limitations and clinical implications of the study are discussed.
This study drew from common factors as an explanatory model for how counseling produces client change. Client self‐report measures for 3 common factors—client factors, client–counselor relationship factors, and client expectancy factors—were examined at a counseling training clinic. Regression analyses revealed that 2 factors significantly predicted treatment outcome: client expectancy and the therapeutic alliance. One variable from client factors—abuse history—had a nonsignificant but modest relationship with outcome.
Cued recall is strongly affected by the strength of the preexisting connection between the test cue and the information to be recalled, the target. In all past work, preexisting cue-to-target strength has been measured by the probability that the cue produced the target in free association. This paper presents four experiments showing that this use of such norms underestimates the strength of the connection and that a more accurate estimate can be obtained by incorporating indirect as well as direct connections in the estimate. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that in extralist cued recall both the strength and number of two-step indirect connections facilitate recall. Experiment 3 showed that three-step connections have negligible effects. Experiment 4 used an intralist task in which cue and target are first studied together, and the results showed once again that indirect connections can affect recall. In all of these experiments, indirect connections had an effect on recall that was larger when direct cue-to-target strength was weak than when it was strong. Implications for using association norms in research are described, and an algorithm for using association norms to measure cueto-target strength is proposed.The present article is concerned with using wordassociation norms as an index of preexisting connection strength among related words in order to predict performance in various tasks, such as cued recall (e.g., Bahrick, 1970; Nelson & McEvoy, 1979), free recall (Deese, 1965), lexical decision (Canas, 1990;deGroot, Thomassen, & Hudson, 1982; McNamara, 1992), and picture naming (e.g., McEvoy, 1988). Such norms are often collected by providing people with a word and asking them to produce the first related word to come to mind. Following a long tradition in memory research (cf. Cramer, 1968), the probability with which any particular word is produced in a large sample of people is used as an index of the strength of a connection between the given word and the produced word. Using the word "strength" only in a descriptive sense, words produced by many people are said to be more strongly connected to the given word than are those that are produced by fewer people. As with other types of normative data, association norms codify consensual knowledge and allow researchers to make predictions about the consequences of deviating from modal values (Kahneman & Miller, 1986). For example, given that two words each produce "X" as an associate, the word that produces "X" with a higher probability in the norms should also be more effective as a retrieval prompt in cued recall.
Despite the importance of the working alliance in therapeutic outcome, little is known about the factors associated with its formation. We advance that personality similarity between client and therapist is one such factor pertinent to the working alliance. In this study, personality similarity in 32 client-therapist dyads was examined for its relations to the bond, task, and goal elements of the working alliance (Bordin, 1979, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 16, 252-260) and therapeutic outcome. Personality similarity was conceptualized using Holland's (1997, Making vocational choices [3rd ed.]) congruence construct. Therapists completed the Self-Directed Search pretreatment and clients completed the Working Alliance Inventory-Short Revised and Self-Directed Search after the third session. Results indicated that (a) client-therapist personality congruence was associated with the bond, (b) bond was associated with task and goal, and (c) task and goal were associated with therapeutic outcome. Congruence was not associated with task, goal, or therapeutic outcome. Holland's theory provides a framework for adapting to clients of varying personality types. By understanding how client-therapist personalities relate to each other in therapy, client-therapist bonds may be more efficiently realized.
The author contends that it was economic interests, not reductionist scientific methods, that displaced the humanities as the basis for counseling profession. Attacking scientific methods may inadvertently marginalize humanistic counselors. Instead, science in counseling should be viewed more broadly and thereby support the humanities as a basis for counseling.
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