Determining the effects of three counselor verbal responses on client verbal behavior.

Abstract

The study determined the effects of four counselor stimulus conditions on three measures of client verbal behavior. The counselor stimulus conditions were reflection of feeling, probe, confrontation, and unspecified responses. The three dependent variables were client affect words, self-referent pronouns, and present verb tense. Twenty subjects were assigned randomly to one of four trained experimenters (counselors) for a 42-minute session. The first 2 minutes were a preliminary orientation period. The remaining 40 minutes were divided into the four 10-minute counselor stimulus conditions. The sequence of stimulus conditions was randomized for each session. A 2 X 2 factorial analysis with repeated measures on the second factor indicated no significant differences for each dependent variable. The implications for indiscriminate use of these four counselor stimulus conditions are discussed with respect to counselor training and research.

Investigation of transactional communication relationship patterns in counseling.

“…The observed frequencies, expected frequencies and the proportions which the observed frequencies represent for complementary one-up and noncomplementary one-up transactions for each of the three counselors are presented in Table 6. The obtained chi-square value was significant, x 2 (2) = 37.876, p < .001, allowing for rejection of the hypothesis that these counselors of different theoretical orientations did not differ in their proportion of one-up responses.…”

Comparative effectiveness of six counselor verbal responses.

“…In contrast, in comparing reflection, restatement, and responses in which the counselor repeated verbatim feelings previously discussed by the client ("you feel ..."), Merbaum and Southwell (1965) reported that reflection significantly increased client affective responding, restatement significantly decreased responding, and repeating feelings had no significant effect. Highlen and Baccus (1977) found no differences between the effect of reflections and probes on client discussion of feeling, nor did Barnebei, Cormier, and Nye (1974) in comparing reflections, probes, confrontations, and mixed responses. In the only study involving interpretive responses, Auerswald (1974) found that these responses significantly increased client productivity of affect, while restatement significantly decreased selfreferent affect.…”

“…Three of the above studies also examined client preferences for different counselor verbal responses, but none reported any significant differences (Auerswald, 1974;Barnebei et al, 1974;Highlen & Baccus, 1977). Reisman and Yamakowski (1974) compared friends' preferences for helping responses and found that expository responses (giving expert analysis or explana-tion) and mixed responses (a combination of empathic, interrogative, and expository responses) were perceived by friends as being more desirable than either empathic or interrogative responses.…”

Verbal and nonverbal behavior in judgments of facilitative conditions.

“…A possible answer to the problem of appropriate verbal conveyance can be sought in the actual verbal techniques employed by various counselors. Numerous studies have been conducted using counselor restatement (Hill & Gormally, 1977;Lavelle, 1977;Snyder, 1945) and reflective (Barnabei, Cormier, & Nye, 1974;Bergman, 1951;Helner & Jessell, 1974;Hill & Gormally, 1977;Lavelle, 1977), interpretive (Helner & Jessell, 1974;Lavelle, 1977), confrontive (Barnabei et al, 1974;Kaul, Kaul, & Bednar, 1973;Reece & Whitman, 1962), and supportive (Knight & Bair, 1976;Samaan & Parker, 1973) statements. _The findings, to date, do not clarify which technique or combination of techniques produce client change.…”