Does counseling work?

Summary This paper has had two purposes: (1) to assess the answer to Does Counseling Work? and (2) to assess the effectiveness of counselor education. Neither question has been nor can be answered clearly or unequivocably. In both instances, the weight of evidence is positive but with many qualifications as regards either the effectiveness of counseling or of counselor education. What is less apparent but clearly implicit in the research literature is that improvements are being made in counseling and in counselor education but these are less than generally incorporated into practitioners skills, repetoires, or training sites. We have learned much and can be useful to many people but we still have much to be humble about, at least as reflected in our research literature.This article contains a summary of the presentation by Dr. Herr at the Seventh International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling, Wurzburg, Germany, April, 1976.