“…Other safeguards such as using informed consent procedures, structuring self-disclosures for protection of privacy, and reducing dual-relationships (Merta, Wolfgang, & McNeil, 1993) have been used for guarding against unintended breach of confidentiality. Furthermore, students completing skills-based group counseling training have demonstrated significant gains in skills acquisition as compared to students not receiving this training (Smaby, Maddux, Torres-Rivera, & Zimmick, 1999;Toth & Stockton, 1996;Zimmick, Smaby, & Maddux, 2000). Morran, Kurpius, Brack, and Brack (1995) suggested that counseling is a cognitively complex activity and that higher level counseling skills need to be linked to higher stages of cognitive development.…”