1985) suggested that all counseling and psychotherapy relationships, regardless of theoretical orientation, consist of three components: a working alliance, a transference configuration (including therapist countertransference), and a real relationship. Drawing on theoretical and research literature and using clinical examples, this article offers 19 propositions about how these three relationship components interact with one another, how each operates across the course of psychotherapy, and how they affect the treatment in both brief and longer term therapies.

Twelve sessions of personal, insight-oriented counseling were conducted by an experienced female psychologist with a young, bright female client who had a dominating, storytelling, melodramatic communication style. Her presenting problems were difficulties with her boyfriend and family, anxiety, and headaches. The counselor's style was interpretive, confrontive, and experiential within the context of a safe, supportive, therapeutic atmosphere. Process measures indicated that the client increased amount of experiencing and insight and decreased amount of time spent describing her problems both within and across sessions. Mechanisms of change seemed to be interpretations, direct feedback, Gestalt exercises, and discussion of the counselor-client relationship, following the establishment of rapport and support. Outcome measures indicated that the treatment was generally positive and resulted in improvement after 12 sessions; this improvement was maintained at 2 months, but the client had relapsed at a 7-month followup. Process analyses suggested that relapse occurred because counseling was too brief, not allowing enough time for the client to incorporate changes.

Science and practice cannot continue together without a major attitudinal shiA a broadening perspective of science and practice and how these two activities can be integrated to strengthen each other. This article represents the culmination of a 2-year project that examined the roles of science and practice within counseling psychology. The central goal of the article is to present (a) specific recommendations for promoting the integration of science and practice within Division 17 and (b) suggest specific strategies for implementing the recommendations.

This two-part article suggests ingredients in the therapy relationship that are common to all interventions. It then examines similarities and differences in how the relationship works within the three dominant approaches to therapy. The overall aim of the article is to restimulate research and theory on the relationship. The first part defines the relationship and proposes three components to all therapeutic relationships: a working alliance, a transference configuration, and a real relationship. Five propositions are offered about the operation of each component within and across theoretical orientations. The second part examines how views of the relationship in perspectives broadly labeled psychoanalytic, humanistic, and learning vary according to three theoretical dimensions: the centrality, real-unreal, and means-end dimensions. Central research findings are reviewed for each theoretical perspective, the current state of research is examined for each, and suggestions are offered for future directions.

This analogue research assessed the effects of counselor physical attractiveness and interactions between attractiveness and counselor and subject sex. Forty male and 40 female undergraduates rated their first impressions of a counselor and their expectations for counseling outcome on the basis of a photograph of either an attractive or an unattractive person and a brief, audiotaped self-introduction by either a male or a female counseling psychologist. Attractiveness did not show main effects but did interact with sex variables, which did show several main effects. Female counselors, particularly in the attractive condition, received higher ratings than male counselors on several impression variables, and female subjects gave higher ratings on impression variables than did male subjects. Both attractive and unattractive counselors were within the normal range of attractiveness, however. Therefore, it is suggested that within the natural setting, sex of counselor and client may play a more important role independently and in conjunction with attractiveness than does attractiveness alone in influencing impressions and expectations.Counseling research suggests that a favorable view of the counselor by the client is important to the client's expectancy for the relationship and to the outcome of the counseling process. Client perception of the counselor attributes of warmth, competence, trustworthiness, and likability have been shown to be positively related to a favorable outcome (Goldstein & Simonson, 1971;Shapiro, Struening, Barten, & Shapiro, 1973;Truax & Carkhuff, 1967). Cash, Begley, McCown, and Weise (1975) suggested that client expectancy of therapeutic gain may be the most important variable in actual symptom reduction, whereas Friedman (1963) suggested that patient expectancy is activated at the first contact with the therapist and accounts for the decrease in discomfort reported after the first interview. Goldstein and Shipman (1961) also found a significant relationship between anticipated and perceived symptom reduction in the firstThe author is grateful to Clara E. Hill and Charlea J. Gelso for the encouragement and thoughtful critiques they provided during the preparation of this manuscript.Requests for reprints should be sent to Jean A. Carter,