Counseling is a professional field that requires as much or more courage than virtually any non-life-threatening occupation. In a fashion analogous to both the fire fighter or the police officer who is in direct physical danger, effective counselors must fortify themselves and prepare themselves as well as possible when they enter the unknown and…

Two primary sources of beginning counselor worries are identified: (1) concern for one's competence as a counselor and a person and (2) worry about the increasing intimacy involved in discussing the emotional life of a client. A catalog of possible humorous responses of beginning counselors is provided, and each response is illustrated with an…

The counseling skill of making effective referrals has always been one of importance. This paper describes two investigations designed to address the following questions: (1) Does research support the importance of an open and positive referral?; and (2) What would be the impact of a neutral or negative referral? Study 1 was initially designed as…

Responds to Miller's article on encouraging gullibility by recommending that a balance between suspicion and gullibility be attained in counseling situations. (Author/ABB)

Previous studies have demonstrated the inability of naive observers (i.e., those who have no counseling training) to differentiate an empathic counselor from a content-only counselor on a variety of counselor rating scales. The present study extends these earlier studies by attempting to determine whether individuals who had been clients…

All people, including counselors, learn and act out a set of roles that includes both "real self" roles and other, less familiar, more uncomfortable roles. Certain principles employed in the training of actors can be applied to counselor preparation. Implications and suggestions for counselor educators are offered. (Author)

Thirty-one prepracticum counselors were assigned randomly to two methods of confrontation skill training: (a) a cognitive self-instructional modeling group and (b) a discrimination/communication training group. The self-instructional group practiced aloud and, later silently, a set of questions designed to identify and to verbalize a discrepancy…

One set of counselor behaviors that has been highly investigated over recent years has been the social influence behaviors. Despite the considerable research interest in social influence theory as it relates to counseling, there has been little attention to the demonstration of the presence or absence of such behavioral skills as expertness,…

Several approaches have been used to teach basic counseling skills to beginning trainees. A cognitive self-instructional modeling approach was employed with a student pre-practicum class. The treatment group (N=9) received 6 hours of training by observing counselor models, formulating their helping responses aloud, practicing the asking of focused…