Moral styles: A resource for value-centered counseling

Abstract

One of the best resources that ministers and others who engage extensively in short-term personal counseling can have is a consistent method for assess ing the needs and initial expectations of persons who come to them for help. Edgar Draper suggests one such method through a set of diagnostic questions: "Why is this person coming for help?" "Why is he coming now?" "Why is he coming to me?"1 Another psychiatrist, Sandor Rado, suggests a method of assessing the motivational level of a person seeking help in terms of four rather distinct categories related to psychogenetic development. A patient may be motivated by "magical craving." ("The doctor must not only cure me, he must do everything for me, by magic") Or, at a slightly less regressed level, he may come in "parental invocation." ("What can the doc tor do for me? He should do everything for me. I want to be his favorite child.") Someone who comes for help while functioning more fully as an adult may be motivated to join the therapist in "co-operative striving." ("I am ready to co-operate with the doctor. I must learn how to help myself.") Finally, at a clearly adult level of functioning, a client may come in "realis tic self-reliance." ("What can I do for myself? How can I best use the help of the doctor?")2 Both of these models serve to direct the counselor's attention beneath the