Charles D. Claiborn

Religious and Spiritual Issues in Counseling Psychology Training

To explore the kind of training counseling psychology programs provide with respect to religious and spiritual issues, surveys were distributed to training directors or designated representatives of 69 counseling psychology programs in the United States. Responses were received from 40, or 58%, of the programs. Results indicated that programs offered relatively little in the way of formal course work in religious or spiritual issues. In addition, participants indicated that in their programs (a) religion and spirituality were often but not always considered a diversity issue; (b) knowledge about religious and spiritual traditions was not generally seen as important to the expertise of faculty members, practicum supervisors, and therapists; (c) religious and spiritual issues received variable attention in didactic and practicum training; and (d) there was considerable openness to research on religious and spiritual topics. Results are discussed in terms of their relevance to counseling psychology practice, research, and professional identity.

Ideographic concept mapping in counseling psychology research: Conceptual overview, methodology, and an illustration

This article provides an overview of the research approach called concept mapping at conceptual, methodological, and practical levels. The relevance of the approach to counseling psychology research is discussed, and the approach is located conceptually in the realm of qualitative methods available to counseling psychology researchers. To illustrate ideographic concept mapping, the authors collect, present, and discuss data from 2 psychologists regarding their conception of the scientist-practitioner construct.

A Proposal to Integrate Science and Practice in Counseling Psychology

Science and practice cannot continue together without a major attitudinal shiA a broadening perspective of science and practice and how these two activities can be integrated to strengthen each other. This article represents the culmination of a 2-year project that examined the roles of science and practice within counseling psychology. The central goal of the article is to present (a) specific recommendations for promoting the integration of science and practice within Division 17 and (b) suggest specific strategies for implementing the recommendations.

Differential Effects of Two Test-Interpretation Styles in Counseling: A Field Study

Two styles of test interpretation, delivered and interactive, were compared in ongoing career counseling for 26 university honors students. The styles were used in interpreting the Personality Research Form and the Vocational Preference Inventory in the second session. Clients listed their thoughts in session after each test was interpreted. After the session, clients evaluated session impact and counselor influence. Clients in the two conditions did not differ in the number of thoughts listed or in the favorability of their thoughts. However, clients who received an interactive interpretation also considered their sessions to be deeper and their counselors to be more expert, trustworthy, and attractive than did clients who received a delivered interpretation. Implications for test-interpretation practice and research are discussed.

Current Supervision Scholarship in Psychology: A Five Year Review

Abstract This paper reviewed five years of supervision-related articles that had been published in psychology journals. Almost one-fourth of the articles were published in Professional Psychology: Research & Practice. The other journals most frequently represented in this review were the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. The largest single category of articles during this five-year period concerned supervision that in some way was harmful. Surprisingly few articles, though, concerned issues of race or culture. The most frequent type of article was theoretical or conceptual in nature. However, when the various categories of article that were in one way or another research-based were combined, this comprised the largest overall category.

Factors, Trends, and Topics in the Evolution of Counseling Psychology Training

During all of its history, the specialty of counseling psychology has evolved constantly in response to changes in the context in which it exists. As the specialty has changed, so too has training. This article discusses six forces that have affected the content and process of counseling psychology training and will continue to do so: market forces, practitioner-educator dialogues, expectations and directives from within the profession, social and political forces, technological innovations, and the cultural context of counseling psychology. We briefly discuss prescriptive authority as a topic that will affect professional training, then conclude by introducing five particular topics that will be covered in the other articles in this issue. All will affect counseling psychology training into at least the near future.

The client's perspective: ethical judgments and perceptions of therapist practices.

In response to a questionnaire, 96 adults, both with and without experience as clients in therapy, judged the ethical appropriateness of 60 therapist practices. In addition, those who had been clients indicated whether the practices had occurred in their own therapy. The practices were organized into 6 groups that corresponded to major areas of professional ethics in psychology: confidentiality, dual relationships, informed consent and business practices, competence, sensitivity to differences, and interventions. Clients and nonclients alike showed a general understanding of ethical principles but uncertainty about many specific points. Some uncertainty stemmed from a misunderstanding about the nature, and particularly the risks, of therapy. Practices judged clearly appropriate were not reported to have occurred universally by the clients in the sample, and practices judged clearly inappropriate were reported to have occurred with some, albeit low, frequency. The results are discussed with regard to implications for ethics research and ethical practice.

The Intellectual Foundations of Education Core Journals and Their Impacts on Scholarship and Practice

Academic journals are the primary mode of communication among researchers, and they play a central role in the creation, diffusion, and use of knowledge. This article updates previous attempts to identify a core set of journals that most education scholars would acknowledge as consequential sources. On the basis of nominations from a panel of experts, 11 primary journals were identified; 3 of these—American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and Review of Educational Research—were nominated by at least one third of the respondents. The impact of these journals is assessed using a number of alternative metrics. In addition, differences in impact on policy and practice versus scholarship are considered.

A Social Influence Approach to Counselor Supervision

Supervision has long been the subject of speculation and research in counseling psychology. Two contrasting models that have been dominant in much of this work are development and learning. According to the developmental conception of supervision, becoming a counselor involves passing through a sequence of stages, each characterized by particular trainee experiences and requiring particular learning (e.g., Loganbill, Hardy, & Delworth, 1982). Writers taking a developmental point of view have focused on identifying and ordering the stages of supervision, understanding the learning that takes place as trainees move through each stage, and deriving implications from this for how supervisors should intervene at each stage to enhance trainee development. The role of the supervisor, in this view, is that of facilitator, who adjusts his or her behavior in accordance with the developmental issues faced by the trainee at a particular stage. Empirical studies suggest that complex developmental changes occur across levels of trainee experience (Reising & Daniels, 1983), that trainees prefer different supervisory behaviors across levels of experience (Worthington, 1984), and that supervisors perceive themselves as varying their behaviors on the basis of experience levels of trainees (Miars et al., 1983).

Anxiety, Attributional Style, and perceived coping ability

Subjects (N =134) completed an instrument package consisting of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Attributional Styles Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, and scales designed to assess efficacy expectation, outcome expectation, situational perception of danger, and situational importance. The study was designed to assess attributional styles and cognitive measures associated with anxiety as distinct from depression. Multiple regression was used to determine which predictor variables significantly accounted for explained variance on the three criterion variables of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and depression, respectively. Results showed that bad outcomes-global contributed significantly to explained variance on trait anxiety and that efficacy expectation, importance, and bad outcomes-stable contributed significantly to explained variance on depression. When BDI scores were entered first, no other predictor variables contributed significantly to explained variance on either state or trait anxiety. Significant correlations among the BDI and efficacy expectation, bad outcomes-stable, and trait anxiety were found.