Counseling session impact as viewed by novice counselors and their clients.

Abstract

The Session Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) was used to measure the perspectives of 17 novice counselors and their 72 clients on 942 individual counseling sessions along two evaluative dimensions—depth and smoothness— and two dimensions of postsession mood—positivity and arousal. A components-of-variance analysis showed that, from both perspectives, SEQ ratings varied greatly from session to session; ratings were only modestly predictable from differences among counselors or among counselor-client dyads. However, averages across 6-10 sessions would permit adequately reliable differentiation among dyads—for example, for comparisons with outcome measures. -Correlations Between corresponding counselor and client dimensions ranged from moderate to negligible, whether calculated across sessions, across clients, or across counselors. Novice counselors' judgments of session depth and value may bear little relation to their clients' evaluations. On the other hand, counselors' comfort in sessions and postsession positive mood were moderately predictive of client reactions. Session impact refers to a counseling session's immediate effects, including the participants' evaluations of the session and their postsession affective states. Session impact research is in the tradition of research on the good hour (Auerbach & Lubors,ky, 1968; Hoyt, 1980; Orlinsky & Howard, 1967) and on counselors' and clients' postsession perceptions of each other and of the session process (Barak & LaCrosse, 1975; Bernard, Schwartz, Oclatis, & Stiner, 1980; LaCrosse, 1977; LaCrosse & Barak, 1976; Mintz,