MicrocounBeling" is a video method of training counselors in basic skills of counseling within a short period of time. This research studies the effects of microcounseling training procedures upon 3 groups of beginning counselors. 3 different skills, "attending behavior," reflection of feeling, and summarization of feeling, were the focus of research. Central to all studies was attending behavior, which is the counseling skill of attending or listening to a client both verbally and nonverbally. These studies suggest that attending behavior and its related concepts may be described in behavioral terms meaningful to beginning counselors. Implications of the attending behavior and microcounseling frameworks are discussed.Teaching beginning counselors and therapists "how to counsel" is one of the more complex and challenging issues facing counseling psychology (Krumboltz, 1967;Matarazzo, Wiens, & Saslow, 1966;Wrenn, 1962). Most would agree that counselor training has not generally been efficient or 1 This research was supported by a grant from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.

Professional counselors in educational and mental health settings all must deal with so‐called psychopathology. At issue is how can they work with “disorder” from a positive, developmental perspective? Developmental counseling and therapy (DCT) offers an approach to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) classification systems that enables the reframing of severe client distress as a logical response to developmental history. Included are specific suggestions for positive case management and practice. Special attention is given to the interface of multicultural issues, etiology, and treatment. The authors maintain that if professional counselors take a developmental approach to a so‐called disorder, the positive theoretical and psychoeducational integrity of the American Counseling Association can be maintained while working with the most difficult issues.

Counseling psychology has a long history of interest and commitment to social justice and multicultural issues. This article discusses some of that history and, in addition, speaks to specifics of implementing a liberation psychology frame of reference into clinical practice along with the issues of implementation and challenges faced by those of a social justice orientation. The authors support the position of Vera and Speight (2003 [this issue]) but point to (a) the need to avoid ahistoricism as practitioners work with social justice and (b) the need for awareness that the multicultural competencies themselves represent a major social justice organizational intervention.

social class, classism, and privilege and their relationship to counseling have been given insufficient attention. this article defines and explores White middle-class privilege; it proffers support for its integration in a multicultural competency, as well as its intersection with race and other dimensions of multiculturalism and privilege. implications for counseling practice plus a clinical case study illustrate the issues. la clase social, el clasismo y el privilegio, así como su relación con la consejería, no han sido tratados con suficiente atención. este artículo define y explora el privilegio de la clase media Blanca; sugiere apoyar su integración en una competencia multicultural, además de su intersección con la raza y otras dimensiones del multiculturalismo y el privilegio. las implicaciones para la práctica de la consejería más el estudio de un caso clínico ilustran estan cuestiones.

No abstract

Subjects in this experiment were 24 second-year students at the University of Oregon Medical School who were randomly assigned to one of two interviewing training groups. The 12 microcounseling subjects received training in the use of attending behavior, open-ended questions, minimal activity responses, paraphrases, reflections of feeling, and summarization through the use of the microcounseling paradigm. The 12 comparison subjects received equivalent interview training. Pretraining and posttraining interviews with real patients were videotaped for each subject. Data analysis revealed that both groups of subjects became better interviewers, but those subjects receiving microcounseling training improved more than the comparison subjects.

No abstract

The facilitation of development may be considered the primary goal of counseling and therapy. Developmental theory, however, remains relatively divorced from direct clinical work. Developmental therapy is oriented toward identifying how to use basic developmental theory in clinical consultation. Developmental therapy differs from life span developmental psychology in emphasizing specific processes of change, growth, and development rather than outcomes and life stages. Thus, developmental therapy supplements life span theory and provides specific suggestions for clinical‐counseling interventions that may be used to assess the developmental level of a client on a specific task, select counseling skills and theory to match client cognitive‐developmental level, and obtain feedback on the effectiveness of the intervention that will enable one to change counseling style to meet client needs. Basic to developmental therapy is a modern adaptatio of Platonic and Piagetian constructs that allows the systematic integration of counseling and therapy theory. Implications of the model for training and practice are discussed.