The Influence of Gender and Family Background on the Effectiveness of Client Centered and Rational Emotive Behaviour Counselling Therapies in Enhancing the SelfConcept of Adolescents

Abstract

Among the Counselling approaches adopted to assist adolescents to solve their problems are the Client-Centered Therapy (CCT) and the Rational Emotive Bahaviour Therapy (REBT). Counsellors in Nigeria adopt any of the two approaches whenever a client presents a problem, without regard to the relative effectiveness of the approaches. The client-centered therapy belongs to the existential humanistic school of thought while the rational emotive behaviour therapy belongs to the cognitive behaviour school. The two therapies were selected for comparison in this study because of their link with self as a concept and because of a dearth of empirical data regarding their relative effectiveness in enhancing the self-concept of Nigerian youths. The purpose of the study was to determine if CCT and REBT are effective in enhancing the self-concept of adolescents, which of the two therapies is more effective in solving the problem and whether or not the effectiveness is influenced by family background and gender. The design of the study consisted of two experimental groups and one control group of 50 subjects each. The subjects were 150 adolescents drawn by means of stratified random sampling from three high schools in the city of Ado-Ekiti in Nigeria. The subjects were screened out from an original pool of a large number of adolescents in the high schools as having self-concept problem based on their scores on a self-concept scale designed by the researchers. Fifty students from each of two of the schools formed experimental groups while the third group from the third school formed the control group. The three groups were pre-tested with a 35-item self-concept inventory designed to measure family characteristics and five dimensions of self-concept namely physical self, mental self, personal self, social self and global self. One experimental group was exposed to REBT and the other to CCT while the control group received no therapy. Both therapies consisted of three counselling sessions held on separate days each lasting for 40 minutes for a period of eight weeks. The three groups were finally post tested with the self-concept inventory. Analysis of data using analysis of covariance indicated that while both REBT and CCT were significantly effective in solving self-concept problems of adolescents, the REBT was significantly more effective. The effect of the therapy on self-concept was significantly influenced by gender but not by family background of the subjects.

Effect of Rational Emotive Health Therapy on Alcohol Use Among Community-dwelling, HIV-positive Patients

“…Future studies should include the demographic variables in the analysis to find out if there will be an interaction effect between demographic variables and REHT intervention for HIV-positive patients who indulge in alcohol drinking. Previous studies [18,31–33] have indicated that REBT programs are not usually disrupted by small sample sizes. This information notwithstanding, upcoming researchers should endeavor to use larger sample sizes to study the effectiveness of REHT on HIV-positive persons in the Nigerian communities.…”

“…For instance, studies indicate that therapists’ sex could account for variability in treatment outcome. [31–33] There also are other variables between patients and therapists that could affect therapeutic alliance, outcomes, and engagement. For instance, active, engaging, and extraverted therapists may generate faster symptom reduction in short-term therapy, whereas nonintrusive therapists may produce better outcome in long-term therapy.…”

School-based intervention for academic stress management and school adjustment among industrial technical education students: Implications for educational administrators

“…[ 58 , 59 ] Also, the effectiveness of rational emotive behavioral therapy was justified in assisting students to cushion the effect of their academic problems, and personal and social life. [ 60 ] Owuamanam, Ajidahun, and Owuamanam [ 61 ] revealed that REBT is effective in enhancing the self-concept of adolescents. Thus, the finding of this study is a very interesting technique to help adolescents improve greatly and adjust properly in and outside school environs.…”