Coached Clients as Raters of Counseling Effectiveness

The study was designed to investigate whether coached clients, trained in objective rating techniques, were more consistent with the ratings of counselor educators when evaluating the counseling effectiveness of counselor trainees, as compared to the same ratings completed by non-coached clients using the same criterion. A sample of ten counselor trainees were each rated by two coached and two non-coached clients using the Counseling Evaluation Inventory. The results indicated that the coached clients significantly agreed with the criterion, while the non-coached clients exhibited bias and subjectivity in their ratings.     

Learning from MacIntyre about Learning: Finding Room for a Second-Person Perspective?

In this article I try to bring into relief the background significance of learning in Alasdair MacIntyre's writings. After briefly adverting to his own manner of learning from other thinkers, I begin by outlining what he sees as essential to learning in early childhood (§I). Next, I spell out what I take to be important implications for learning, mainly in the context of schooling, of his conception of ‘practice’ (§II). Turning then to the ‘revolutionary Aristotelianism’ of his later work, I elucidate the kind of transformative learning that he deems necessary because of dominant tendencies in late modern societies (§III) and because of key features of human lives—including fallibility, narrativity and ‘final end’—that he analyses in his most recent book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (§IV). I then consider his conception of how one person's learning can be aided by another, suggesting that this conception would be strengthened by the incorporation of a second-person perspective (§V). I link the absence of such a perspective to what I see as his underestimation of the salience of the teacher–student relationship and his consequently diminished account of teaching—a largely Aristotelian-Thomist account whose strengths in other respects I acknowledge (§VI). I conclude by asking whether this line of criticism, if valid, might not indicate a lack in MacIntyre's conception of personal relationships more generally—despite the great import that he grants to them, for weal or woe, in all human lives (§VII). [The present article is included in wider discussion of issues bearing on learning and teaching in my Persons in Practice: Essays between Education and Philosophy (Wiley, forthcoming)].     

An Affective Sexual Awareness Program for Counselors

Most counseling students and counselor educators lack adequate preparation for working with clients who have sexual problems. The authors developed a program to facilitate increased awareness of one's own sexuality as a basis for aiding others in that area. The program emphasizes small group participation in order to provide security to explore sexuality and its effects on interpersonal relationships. The program uses brief videotape vignettes of affective-sexual behaviors of individuals and pairs (heterosexual and same-sexed pairs), followed by group discussion. Interpersonal interaction exercises are used to aid participants in relating to their own sexuality. Overall response to the six presentations reported here has been favorable.     

Listening for the Voices of Care and Justice in Counselor Supervision

This article demonstrates listening for the voices of care and justice in counseling supervision. Supervisors are encouraged to speak in both voices to maximize effective supervision.     

A Multimodal Approach to Counselor Supervision

This article represents an initial effort to apply Lazarus's multimodal approach to a model of counselor supervision. The supervision model emphasizes the importance of considering the trainee's total counseling experience. As a means of accessing the trainee's total experience, the supervisory process includes continuously monitoring the trainee's Behavior, Affect, Sensations, Images, Cognitions, Interpersonal functioning, and when appropriate, Biological functioning (Diet and Drugs). The multimodal model of supervision is presented as supervisee-specific; and the multimodal supervisor is seen as flexible, adaptable, and technically eclectic. Key multimodal supervision procedures, such as establishing a trainee modality profile and tracking the modality firing order, are presented and discussed via a case example.     

Systematic Group Counselor Training: A Mastery Model

We had previously identified specific cognitive and experiential group counselor training objectives; this study represents a systematic attempt to plan, develop, and evaluate a training model using those objectives. The mastery learning model was identified as best suited for carrying out the training. At the beginning of the training (carried out as two concurrent graduate courses in group counseling), the students were presented with the objectives, a time plan, and evaluation criteria. The training model consisted of 15 graduate students, 11 at the doctoral and 4 at the master's level. Evaluations of course content and course objectives by experimental and comparison groups of trainees indicated the overall success of this exploratory study.     

A METHODOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE TORRANCE TESTS OF CREATIVITY

The sensitivity of creative thinking as measured by the Torrance Tests with regard to an experimenter-induced response set was investigated. The 198 subjects were divided into four groups. Before performing the Unusual Uses Activity (Verbal Form A), each group was given a unique set of instructions. Group I received standard instructions and acted as a control. Other treatments were varied in terms of the types of responses that were encouraged. Group II was encouraged to be "practical and reasonable"; Group III was encouraged to list "as many ideas" as possible; and Group IV was encouraged to include all "unusual, weird, or illogical" ideas. Discriminant analysis yeilded two significant functions, suggesting that univariate analysis of the Torrance scales of Fluency. Flexibility, and Originality can be misleading. A multivariate Dunnett test showed that Torrance Tests were highly sensitive to brief experimenter manipulation. A very modest induced attitude shift resulted in a shift of up to approximately a standard deviation in the creativity scores.