The “Ideal therapeutic relationship” and counseling outcome

Abstract

Ss were also schizophrenics from the preceding two studies. Note the more rapid rise of the dependent variable during the treatment phase and the drop during extinction.Analysis showed that neither sex of the experimenter nor sex of the Ss were significant variables in this experiment. DISCUSSION AND SUMMARYIn two previous experiments using schizophrenics as Ss, the writers have shown that psychoanalytic-type interpretations can serve as verbal reinforcers in a simple verbal conditioning problem. Each interpretation used was specifically designed to relate to the content of the particular incomplete sentence which served as its stimulus. The question asked in this study was whether any interpretive statement by El even if the content of the interpretation was unrelated to the 8's statement that it followed, could art as a reinforcer. Colby had suggested that much of the effect of interpretations may depend upon their "truth-status". To investigate Colby's hypothesis, the interpretations were listed separately from the stimulus cards and shuffled to yield random pairing of stimulus sentences and interpretations. The learning curve for the Ss receiving "shuffled interpretations" was quite similar to that of Ss who received the logically fitting interpretations following "correct" responses. The data support the hypothesis that the "truth-status" or relevance of interpretations is not the central factor in whether interpretations lawfully modify verbal behavior in a verbal conditioning situation. REFERENCES 1. ADAMS, H. E., NOBLIN, C. D., BUTLER, J. R. and TIMMONB, E. 0. The differential effect of Psyehol. 2. ADAMS, H. E., BUTLER, J. R. and NOBLIN C. D. Effects of psychoanalytically-derived inter-3. COLBY, K. M. Research in psychoanalytic information theory. . deneralization of verbal re-psychoanalytically-derived interpretations and verbal conditioning in schizophrenics. , 1962, If, 195-198. pretations: a verbal conditioning paradigm? hychol. Reports 1962,10,691-694. Reports 358-369.tion of interview content in standardized interviews. J. eonsult. Psychol. 1960,.94,528-536. sponsea following two methods of reinforcement.

Effective ingredients in psychotherapy: Prediction of outcome from process variables.

“…Adult outpatients in analytically oriented therapy (Feifel & Eells, 1963;Strupp, Fox, & Lessler, 1969) and clients at a college counseling center (Saltzman, Luetgert, Roth, Greaser, & Howard, 1976) who felt that their therapists were warm, understanding, and respectful of them were more likely to be satisfied with their therapy experience and to manifest improvement than were patients who saw their therapists as indifferent, bored, or irritated. In contrast, ratings based on Fiedler's (1950) measure of the "ideal therapeutic relationship" bore a minimal relationship to outcome of analytically oriented group therapy (Parloff, 1961) and no relationship to outcome of individual counseling (Gonyea, 1963;Lesser, 1961).…”

Re-visioning empathy.

“…Other problems that have been identified by reviewers of the studies on the relationship between empathy and outcome include the time of assessment, sampling methods, and the operationalization of empathy (Duan & Hill, 1996;Gurman, 1977;Mitchell, Bozarth, & Krauft, 1977). First, although numerous studies have found that the experience level of the therapist is an important variable in judges' ratings of empathy (Fiedler, 1950a;Fish, 1970;Gonyea, 1963;Luborsky et al, 1988;Parloff, 1961), it is seldom factored into studies that are investigating the relationship between empathy and outcome. Second, numerous studies have found that the time of assessment is an important variable and that judges' and clients' ratings can change depending on when during therapy the assessment is made (Cartwright & Lerner, 1965;Patterson, 1983;Rice, 1965).…”

Is empathy important in counseling?

“…Another surprising finding is that of the four counseling product outcome studies, two- Katz (1962) and Gonyea (1963)-found no relationship between empathy and counseling outcomes. Lesser (1961), using two different empathy measures, found both support in the case of one, and nonsupport in the other, for this relationship.…”