Identity Achievers and Their Rated Levels of Facilitation

Abstract

The issue of what kind of people will make the best therapists is vital to clinical training programs and clinical service agcncles. Erik Eriksen (1963) has maintained that in general the most effective people are identity achievers. These are people who have successfully resolved life crises and are committed to an ideology. Using Marcia's (1966) rating system of ego identity status, Ss rated as identity achievers and non-achievers were compared. They were 11 male and 7 female graduate students in their first year of training for a Master's degree in clinical psychology. Their ages ranged between 22 and 28 yr. Prior to testing, Ss received 40 hr. of combined didactic and experiential helping skill training (Carkhuff, 1969), after which S's level of interpersonal functioning was evaluated blind by two trained raters. The raters were two Master's clinical psychologists who had experience rating Ss on these variables. A 30-min. sample of S's audio taped helping behavior was rated on a five-point global level of facilitation scale (Carkhuff, 1969). The scale ranges from the lowest level (level 1 ) where the helper communicates to the helpee less of the latter's expressed feelings. The helper shows a lack of respect for the helpee and facilitates the latter's exploration of only vague generalities. At the upper level (level 5 ) the helper facilitates rhe helpee in exploring deeper feelrngs rhan the helpee was able to express himself. This is done with a true sense of the helpee's worth. At the highest level the helper also facilitates the helpee's exploration of spec~fic issues. A Pearson product-moment of .97 inter-rater reliability was obtained. Following the training, each S was also interviewed for 15 min. to determine his identity status. The interviews were tape recorded and rated blind by two raters, a Ph.D. clinical psychologist and a Master's level clinician, who had experience rating identity status. Each S was evaluated as to the presence or absence of an identity crisis and his degree of commitment to occupation and ideology (religious and political). Briefly, identity achievement status is characterized by resolution of a crisis period and commitment to occupation and ideology. All Ss not meeting the requirements of identity achievement were classified as non-achievers. In addition to the operational division of identity echievers versus non-identity achievers, this distinction is justified for two reasons. Theoretically, Eriksen maintains that identity achievers are healthier. Empirically, Marcia has found that identity achievers were distinguished from non-identity achievers as scoring higher on an independent measure of identity attainment task, and they were less vulnerable to negative manipulation of their self-esteem (Marcia, 1966). Inter-rater agreement for assigning Ss to an identity status group was 94%. There was only one S on whom the raters did not agree. A t test performed on the ratings of level of facilitative functioning by identity achievers and non-identity achievers was significant ( t = 5.83, d f = 16, p = ,005). The mean level of facilitation for the 9 identity achievers was 3.66 and 2.50 for 9 non-identity achievers. These Ss minimally trained in interpersonal helping skills and identified as identity achievers on Marcia's rating scale, when cast in the helper role, were significantly more interpersonally facilitative than the non-achievers. As the number of Ss was small, this conclusion should be regarded as tentative.