Volunteer Clients Research Articles

Presession mood induction in therapists: Effects on therapist empathy.

Previous studies show that therapist mood is associated with psychotherapy processes, but the observational nature of these studies does not allow for causal inference. It is also unclear if other therapist characteristics, such as therapist trait empathy, moderate the relation between therapist mood and process variables. Thirty-four therapists and volunteer client dyads participated in three weekly counseling sessions. Before each session, therapists were induced to experience one of three moods, elation, depression, or neutral, in a counterbalanced order, using a combination of music and the Velten method. After each session, clients rated therapist empathy and session quality, therapists rated session quality, and observers rated therapist empathy using videotapes. Electrocardiogram was collected from therapists and clients during the session to assess heart rate synchrony as an indicator of therapist empathy. Therapist trait empathy moderated the effect of mood induction on observer-rated therapist empathy, such that when induced to experience elation, therapists with high trait empathy were observed to be more empathic, whereas therapists with low trait empathy were observed to be less empathic. Therapists of different trait empathy levels did not differ on observer-rated empathy when induced to experience depression or neutral mood. No significant effect of mood induction was found for client-rated empathy, client- and therapist-rated session quality, or heart rate synchrony. The experimental design offers preliminary evidence that therapist presession mood may influence the psychotherapy process. The findings are explained in light of empathy amplification and empathy attenuation hypotheses in relation to positive emotion. Practice and research implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Modeling cohesion change in group counseling: The role of client characteristics, group variables, and leader behaviors.

Despite continued empirical support for a relationship between group cohesion and therapeutic gain, few studies have attempted to examine predictors of cohesion during the life of counseling groups. The present investigation explored the impact of client variables, group characteristics, and first-session leader behaviors on changes in cohesion across time. Participants were 128 volunteer clients and 14 group therapists participating in 23 separate 8-week-long counseling groups. Results of latent growth curve (LGC) analysis indicated that a piecewise, linear-quadratic model best fit the data at the individual level, while a simplified linear model best fit the data at the group level. Overall, individual differences accounted for 80-97% of the total variance in cohesion intercept and slope terms, with the included covariates explaining 9-39% of this variation. Significant individual-level covariates were gender and anxious and avoidant attachment. The only significant group-level predictor was an interaction effect between leadership behaviors in the first session. Specifically, when leaders performed a high number of structuring behaviors in the absence of facilitating emotional sharing, cohesion was lower at the end of the first session. Limitations, areas of future research, and implications for the theory and practice of brief group counseling are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Helping Skills, Working Alliance, and Session Depth in China: A Multilevel Analysis

Ninety-five first-year master’s-level students in China conducted three helping sessions with two volunteer clients. After every session, clients completed measures assessing trainees’ use of helping skills, working alliance, and session depth. Results of a multilevel analysis indicated that: (a) between-trainee and between-client exploration skill use was related to better working alliance reported by the client, and between-session exploration skill use was related to greater session depth; (b) between-trainee, between-client, and between-session insight skill use was related to better working alliance, but none of these components were related to session depth; and (c) between-trainee action skill use was negatively related to client report of working alliance. We discuss theoretical and practical implications from the multilevel framework, considering the Chinese cultural context.

Community-Based Physical Fitness Service Learning: Student and Volunteer Perspectives

ABSTRACTThis article compares the post-activity perceptions of both the volunteer clients and student service providers in a community-based service learning project. Students served as either personal trainers or nutrition coaches for recruited clients during the final month of their respective classes. The clients were asked to rank different factors based on their relative impact on their motivation to adhere to their programs. The students were asked to rank the same factors based on how they thought their clients were impacted. Mann-Whitney U tests were run to determine if there were statistically significant differences (0.05 level) in the perceptions of students and clients regarding the relative impact of the factors. While the tests revealed no significant differences between the rankings of nutrition coaches and clients, personal trainers and clients differed significantly in the way they ranked certain factors. Implications for undergraduate professional preparation and/or certification of fitness professionals are discussed.

A new volunteer computing model for data‐intensive applications

SummaryVolunteer computing is a type of distributed computing in which ordinary people donate computing resources to scientific projects. BOINC is the main middleware system for this type of distributed computing. The aim of volunteer computing is that organizations be able to attain large computing power thanks to the participation of volunteer clients instead of a high investment in infrastructure. There are projects, like the ATLAS@Home project, in which the number of running jobs has reached a plateau, due to a high load on data servers caused by file transfer. This is why we have designed an alternative, using the same BOINC infrastructure, in order to improve the performance of BOINC projects that have reached their limit due to the I/O bottleneck in data servers. This alternative involves having a percentage of the volunteer clients running as data servers, called data volunteers, that improve the performance of the system by reducing the load on data servers. In addition, our solution takes advantage of data locality, leveraging the low network latencies of closer machines. This paper describes our alternative in detail and shows the performance of the solution, applied to 3 different BOINC projects, using a simulator of our own, ComBoS.

Experiential Learning to Advance Student Readiness for Level II Fieldwork

Occupational therapy (OT) students question their readiness for Level II fieldwork prior to their first placement. Many request more hands-on experiences with clients during their coursework, in preparation for the practice setting. As part of a two year Master of Occupational Therapy program, a fourth semester course was designed to address readiness for fieldwork and engage students in the OT process with actual volunteer clients. This course utilized the primary components of a clinical setting: client interaction, evaluation, intervention and outcomes review, clinical decision making, documentation, and communication, to promote student proficiencies as clinicians in preparation for fieldwork experiences. Weekly student reflections, survey data, and exit interviews identified that the experience was a highly valuable process that aided participants in their readiness to practice as student clinicians. This paper will describe the experiential learning course design, the learning methods used and the outcomes as identified by student perceptions of the impact on their learning and readiness for fieldwork.

The effects of telepsychology format on empathic accuracy and the therapeutic alliance: An analogue counselling session

AbstractObjectiveThe primary purpose of this study was to evaluate whether psychotherapy format (videoconferencing, telephone or in‐person) influenced therapist empathic accuracy and clients’ perceptions of the therapeutic alliance. We also evaluated whether client attitudes towards using telepsychology influenced the therapeutic alliance in the telepsychology formats. A secondary purpose was to determine whether empathic accuracy predicted the therapeutic alliance differently across service delivery formats.MethodA randomised block design was used to assign volunteer clients (N = 58) to receive one session of psychotherapy in a videoconferencing, telephonic or in‐person format. Clients completed two therapeutic alliance measures and a telepsychology attitudes measure, and both therapists and clients completed an empathic accuracy measure.ResultsThere were no statistically significant differences between the conditions on therapist empathic accuracy or therapeutic alliance. Attitudes towards telepsychology and empathic accuracy were both significant predictors of alliance in the telepsychology delivery formats. Interestingly, empathic accuracy did not predict the therapeutic alliance for clients in the in‐person condition.ConclusionsAlthough preliminary, the results suggest that the technology‐mediated psychotherapy processes of empathic accuracy and therapeutic alliance seem to be similar to in‐person psychotherapy. Empathic accuracy, however, may be a more salient process for clients who receive services in a telepsychology format. Process‐focused research may highlight important distinctions in technology‐mediated psychological services that inform both practice and policy.

Survey of HIV/AIDS Clients in Botswana: Reactions to Supportive Counselling

A survey of HIV/AIDS clients in Botswana, Africa, all of whom were receiving supportive counselling, was conducted. A total of 328 volunteer clients from randomly selected sites completed the survey related to client perceptions of counselling helpfulness, outlook on life, satisfaction with goal setting in counselling, experience of social stigma, and acceptance by family and others. Overall, clients were very positive concerning the benefits received from counselling, their relationship with their counsellor, the goal setting process, their family/friends support system and their present quality of life. The majority of clients did, however, indicate some level of feeling stigmatized by being HIV-positive. Additional major findings indicated that clients with family incomes of less than 10 K pula per year (around US$1 k) were less positive about their counselling and related experiences than were those with higher levels of family income, with the exception of social stigma where lower family income was associated with less perceived social stigma. Clients reporting counselling sessions lasting more than 15 min were generally more positive in their reactions to counselling and related experiences than were clients reporting sessions typically lasting 15 min or less. A discussion of the findings, along with recommendations for areas needing further study and attention, is provided.

Face-to-Face and Online Counseling: Client Problems and Satisfaction

Alongside technological developments, online counseling has started becoming widespread since last decade. The purpose of this study is to investigate face-to-face and online counseling in terms of client problems and satisfaction. This qualitative study used a phenomenology research design and consisted of 12 female and 9 male, twenty-one volunteer clients. Fifteen participants were given face-to-face, whereas six participants, online counseling. Clients received face-to-face and online counseling from seven volunteer senior students in the undergraduate program of Counseling and Guidance. A content analysis is used for data interpretation. The results of the study suggest that the problems and satisfaction are quite similar in face-to-face and online clients. Personal problems were the most common problem among the clients. Respectively, career development concerns, academic problems, and relationship issues with a partner and family follow personal problems. All the participants were satisfied with the counseling process and satisfaction of face-to-face counseling and online counseling participants were remarkably similar.

Helping Skills Training for Undergraduate Students

We examined the effectiveness of the Hill model of helping skills training for 191 undergraduate students in six sections of a semester-long course. Students completed self-report, performance, and nonverbal measures at the beginning; they conducted one 20-min helping session at the beginning and another toward the end of the semester; and they completed self-efficacy measures at the end of the semester. Students’ helping skills improved over the course of the semester, as evidenced by higher helper- and volunteer client–rated session quality, reduced proportion of words spoken in sessions, increased proportion of exploration skills used in sessions, and increased self-efficacy for using helping skills. Self-reported empathy predicted four of the five helping skills criteria at the beginning-of-semester assessment. Facilitative interpersonal skills predicted end-of-semester self-efficacy in helping skills when controlling for retrospective prelevels and instructor effects. Implications for training and research are presented.

'Imagine if I gave up smoking ...': a qualitative exploration of Aboriginal participants' perspectives of a self-management pilot training intervention.

This paper reports on a pilot qualitative study investigating Aboriginal participants' perspectives of the Flinders Living Well Smoke Free (LWSF) 'training intervention'. Health workers nationally have been trained in this program, which offers a self-management approach to reducing smoking among Aboriginal clients. A component of the training involves Aboriginal clients volunteering their time in a mock care-planning session providing the health workers with an opportunity to practise their newly acquired skills. During this simulation, the volunteer clients receive one condensed session of the LWSF intervention imitating how the training will be implemented when the health workers have completed the training. For the purpose of this study, 10 Aboriginal clients who had been volunteers in the mock care-planning process, underwent a semi-structured interview at seven sites in Australia, including mainstream health services, Aboriginal community controlled health services and remote Aboriginal communities. The study aimed to gauge their perspectives of the training intervention they experienced. Early indications suggest that Aboriginal volunteer clients responded positively to the process, with many reporting substantial health behaviour change or plans to make changes since taking part in this mock care-planning exercise. Enablers of the intervention are discussed along with factors to be considered in the training program.

Training Undergraduate Students to Use Interpretation

After they had learned exploration skills, 128 undergraduate helping skills students were taught to use the insight skill of interpretation. After training, students had higher self-efficacy for using interpretation and were rated by both themselves and volunteer clients as using interpretation more often. Students in a delay condition did not change over a comparable period of time in which they received no training in interpretation. Self-efficacy for interpretation increased after lecture/discussion, a fishbowl exercise in the lecture class, small group practice in the lab, and dyad practice in the lab. In post-training ratings, lab group practice was perceived as the most helpful, the fishbowl exercise the least helpful, and all other components moderately helpful. Students with the highest initial self-efficacy gained the least in self-efficacy but ended with the highest levels of self-efficacy. Students with more prior helping experience increased more in self-efficacy and had the highest final self-efficacy.

Repurposing process measures to train psychotherapists: Training outcomes using a new approach

AbstractAims: First, this paper presents the rationale for a novel approach to training counsellors in which measures for psychotherapy process research are taught to students before moving on to teaching basic empathic reflections and interventions. The rationale for this is that client process measures can be re‐purposed to help orient and sensitise trainees to key in‐session moments. Second, we present a training outcome study that assesses the effectiveness of this approach. Method: Using an experiential‐integrative therapy approach, a 13‐week training program was used to teach psychotherapy skills and process research measures to22 clinical graduate students taken from two cohorts. As part of the course, trainees conducted several single sessions with volunteer clients on four separate occasions. Training outcomes were measured using both trainee and client reports. Results: Compared to baseline, therapists reported significant and steady gains (all p's<.05) in session management, reducing their anxious self‐awareness, and in improved sense of self‐efficacy, with the latter having the largest effect (partial Eta Sq.=.381). Discussion: While the findings provide some support for a new training strategy, a dismantling design is needed next to more closely examine the process‐measure approach to training.

Women empower women: volunteers and their clients in community service

AbstractThe study is aimed at examining the relationship between psychological empowerment of women volunteers and their clients in community volunteer projects in Israel. Based on an ecological approach, the study also aimed at examining whether the variables that explain empowerment of women who volunteer also explain empowerment of their clients. The sample included 148 women, who were divided into 74 volunteer‐client pairs. Psychological empowerment of volunteers did not correlate significantly with psychological empowerment of clients. However, the volunteer women's motives for volunteering and the quality of the volunteer–client interaction correlated positively with psychological empowerment of the clients. Empowerment of volunteers was explained primarily by social motives, by the quality of interactions with their clients, and by the quality of the volunteer's interaction with the coordinator of volunteer activity. In light of the findings, practical recommendations are offered for empowering women volunteers and their clients in community settings. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Changes in trainees' intention use and volunteer clients' evaluations of sessions during early skills training.

Volunteer clients (N = 96) evaluated sessions conducted by prepracticum trainees prior to and after the trainees received instruction in interpersonal-psychodynamic therapy. The relationship between changes in therapeutic style, measured by intension use, and changes in volunteer clients' session evaluations were examined with growth curve analyses. After training, trainees increased their focus on client emotions and on the therapeutic relationship and decreased their verbal activity. Increased session smoothness was related to decreases in trainee verbal activity and to increases in trainee flexibility. Increases in volunteer clients' perceptions of trainee expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness were related to trainees' increased focus on client emotions and increased focus on the therapeutic relationship and to decreases in confrontation.

The evaluation of participants’ perceptions of session impact: do counsellors-in-training, volunteer clients, and extra-credit/class required clients view session impact differently?

ABSTRACT Training programmes frequently recruit students from undergraduate classes to serve as clients for counsellors-in-training. Some of these clients receive external incentives for this participation, such as extra-credit or expectation of fulfilling a course requirement. It is unknown however whether or not this external incentive influences the perception of these sessions for clients and also for the counsellor-in-training. This article describes a study examining the impact of external incentive on client and counsellor-in-training session evaluation ratings. Some differences in perceptions for both counsellors and clients were found between sessions involving extra-credit and those not involving extra-credit. The training and ethical implications related to these findings is discussed.

Volunteer client attachment moderates the relationship between trainee therapist attachment and therapist interventions

This study explored the association between attachment security of therapists (alone and in interaction with clients' attachment) and therapist interventions in early sessions of short-term psychotherapy. Trainee therapists and volunteer clients (N=24) in short-term therapy completed the Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) as a measure of adult romantic attachment orientations. Therapist interventions were identified and related to client and therapist attachment orientation. Results indicated that in early therapy sessions client attachment moderated the relationship between therapist attachment and therapist interventions. Specifically, avoidantly attached therapists intervened with more directive interventions when clients were high in attachment avoidance.

Therapist response modes in the exploration stage: timing and effectiveness

In an investigation of the exploration stage of single counselling sessions with 26 anxious female volunteer clients and 13 female doctoral student therapists, no overall association was found between client narrative processing modes and subsequent therapist verbal response modes. There was evidence in a third of the sample for an association between therapist response modes and subsequent client narrative modes, such that clients used more internal than external or reflexive narrative processing modes when therapists used open questions about feelings and reflections of feelings. Client and therapist helpfulness ratings did not differ for different therapist response modes or client narrative process modes. Hence, overall results suggested that all four therapist response modes (open questions about thoughts, open questions about feelings, restatements, reflections of feelings) are effective during the exploration stage.

Helpful components involved in the cognitive-experiential model of dream work

The purpose of the study was to examine the helpful components involved in the Hill’s cognitive-experiential dream work model. Participants were 27 volunteer clients from colleges and universities in northern and central parts of Taiwan. Each of the clients received 1–2 sessions of dream interpretations. The cognitive-experiential dream work model was applied to these clients by three therapists. The processes of the dream work were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. The transcribed data, which included a total of 38 sessions for the 27 clients, were analyzed by the Consensus Qualitative Research (CQR) approach to examine the helpful components of the dream work. The results indicated that the general and typical helpful components involved in the process of dream interpretation included four domains: waking-life association, parts of self exploration, gaining insight, and action ideas.

Volunteer Clients and Second Life Virtual Experiences Change the Landscape of Health Appraisal Acorss the Lifespan

Volunteer Clients and Second Life Virtual Experiences Change the Landscape of Health Appraisal Acorss the Lifespan