The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a test yielding scores on four dimensions, Judgment-Perception, Thinking-Feeling, Sensation-Intuition and Extraversion-Introversion, was administered to clients and their counselors. An absolute difference score was obtained for each pair and correlated with number of counseling sessions. The results indicate that the greater over-all similarity, the greater the length of counseling; similar, but less striking, results are found for individual dimensions. Client scOTes are uncorrelated with the criterion. The results are interpreted as indicating greater client commitment to counseling when the counselor is similar to the client in cognitive-perceptual orientation.

Client attitudes toward their counseling experience were assessed by a postcounseling questionnaire. A cluster analysis of responses indicated 3 clusters, Evaluation, Comfort-Rapport, and Judged Counselor Competence which show unexpectedly low positive correlations with each other. The relationship of client-counselor similarity on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to client attitudes varies as a function of cluster content and nature of sample: Evaluation is curvilinear with similarity, middle similarity producing highest scores; Comfort-Rapport is related to high similarity for freshmen but to middle similarity for nonfreshmen; the effects of similarity tend to be more pronounced in opposite-than in same-sex pairings; high ratings of Judged Competence are associated with particular test dimensions rather than with overall similarity. * f = .05. **p =.01.

This study is concerned with the failure of a client to appear for a scheduled counseling interview. Such failures are related neither to client nor counselor characteristics, but, compared to nonfailers, clients who fail to appear are significantly (p < .001) more similar to their counselors in terms of Myers-Bnggs Type Indicator profiles. In the majority of cases, missed interviews almost always occur early after the first session Thus, clients who terminate by a failure have very brief counseling. Clients who return after a failure, however, stay longer (p < .025) than those who never fail at all The results point to the importance of the initial client-counselor interaction and more mferentially to the variability of the effects of similarity on the counseling relationship.

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