All‐Inclusive Conceptualization as a Dimension of Trainee Empathic Responding

Abstract

Investigations into the personality characteristic all-inclusive conceptualization (AIC) indicated that this variable was related to the ability to integrate facilitative interpersonal behaviors. A test of AIC was administered to 28 counseling practicum students who also submitted audiotapes of an initial, middle, and final counseling session. The sessions were rated, using a 5-point Carkhuff scale, as to the level of empathic understanding present. Significant negative correlations were found between scores on the test and rated levels of empathic understanding in each counseling session. The correlations indicated that those trainees who scored higher on the test of AIC offered their clients lower levels of empathic understanding than did their lower scoring colleagues. Implications for this finding are discussed.Researchers have made considerable efforts over the past 30 years to understand the relationship between personality characteristics and the ability to counsel effectively (Matarazzo, 1978). Investigations into the personality characteristic all-inclusive conceptualization (AlC) provide information associating this variable with the ability to integrate facilitative interpersonal behaviors (Drakeford, 1967). Snider has defined AIC as the tendency to respond to stimuli in terms of overgeneralized language (1969) and as one's reaction to the word as if it were the object it stands for (1979). AIC research emanates from the pioneering interests of general semanticists, who have argued that the tendency towards absoluteness or allness in language is directly related to dysfunctional behavior (Hayakawa, 1943;Korzybski, 1948).A general suspicion has existed that the level of one's conceptual flexibility has a bearing on the ability to provide facilitative interpersonal responses

Sex Role Orientation and Self‐Disclosure Flexibility in Counselor Training

“…Mahon and Altmann (1977) argued that it was not the skills themselves that were important: it was the control, intention, and the flexibility of their use that determined counselor effectiveness. The results of this study and previous research (e.g., Brown & Smith, 1984;Fuqua et al, 1984), suggest that the flexibility of cognitions or perceptions mediates the learning and use of counseling skills. In fact, perceptual flexibility, of which sex role orientation and self-disclosure flexibility are separate and only partial measures, may be as crucial to effective counseling as learning how to produce specific counseling skills.…”

“…Stereotyping, for example, has been found to interfere with the counselor's processing of information about ethnic minority clients (Wampold,Casas,& Atkinson,198 l), and homosexual versus heterosexual individuals (Casas, Brady, & Ponterotto, 1983). Brown and Smith (1984) found an inverse relationship between allinclusive conceptualizations, a concept related to dogmatism, and the counseling student's empathy skills. In addition, counseling students at higher levels of conceptual development, defined in part as being more flexible in their thinking processes and interpersonal behaviors (Harvey, Hunt, & Schroeder, 1961), have exhibited more effective performance of several counseling behaviors (Fuqua, Johnson, Anderson, & Newman, 1984).…”

Relativistic Thought: A Cognitive Basis for Empathy in Counseling

“…Researchers have studied the effects of dogmatism (Carlozzi, Campbell, & Ward, 1982;Carlozzi, Edwards, & Ward, 1978;Foulds, 1971;Kemp, 1962;Milliken & Patterson, 1967;Omizo, Ward, & Michael, 1979), conceptual level (Kimberlin & Fruiesen, 1980), tolerance for ambiguity (Gruberg, 1967;Jones, 1974), cognitive flexibility (Marks, McWhirter, & Davis, 1974), and all-inclusive conceptualization (Brown & Smith, 1984). In general, the results of these studies have been inconclusive.…”