Psychology counseling: overview and therapeutic approaches

¶ … Person-Centered counseling: The culture" Ann Shanks Glauser & Jerold Bozarth explore the conditions that are necessary for successful counseling, and focus especially on the specialty of multicultural counseling.

Published in the Journal of Counseling and Development, the article argues that person-centered counselling is at the very heart of success in counseling. Specifically, authors Glauser and Bazarth suggest that the relationship between the client and counselor, and the client's situational and personal resources (extratherapeutic variables), are the essential variables that determine success in counselling. Further, Glauser and Bazarth argue that the "specificity myth," or the concept that there are specific treatments for certain groups of people, can seriously damage the potential success of any counselling endeavour.

Glauser and Bazarth first thoroughly explore their thesis that the relationship of the therapist and client is absolutely essential to the success of counselling. They note that Rogers' postulates of "respect for the client (referring to unconditional positive regard), genuineness, empathic understanding, and the counselor's communication of these three therapist conditions to the client" are absolutely essential to successful counseling.

Further, the authors note that the failure of these postulates leads to reliance on the "specificity myth" in counseling.

Reliance on the "specificity" myth, or the idea that there are specific treatments for specific dysfunctions or groups of people, ultimately damages the counseling relationship. They provide statistical evidence for the relative unimportance of counseling technique, noting that only 15% of the success variance of the counseling relationship can be accounted for by technique, similar to the 15% accounted for by placebo. In contrast, Glauser and Bazarth note that fully 30% of the success variance comes from the client-counsellor relationship, and an impressive 40% comes from extratherapeutic variables or chance occurrences.

The authors then go on to explore the variables of the client-therapist relationship and the extratherapeutic variables of the client. They note that "most theories consider the (client-therapist) relationship as critical." A successful relationship is defined by the counselor's empathy for the client, seen in his or her genuineness with the client, and the counselor's true respect and value for the client. Glauser and Bazarth note, "Making judgments about people's humanity and its quality due to established criteria is to rely on tired but extremely powerful discourses steeped in oppression."

Glauser and Bazarth note that extratherapeutic variables include the "internal and external resources of the client as well as chance factors that influence the client." As such family support and individual abilities like optimism and problem solving skills are key extratherapeutic variables. These extratherapeutic variables should be determined from the client's frame of reference, and will ultimately impact both the counselor's actions and the use of external resources.

The authors then note the application of these variables in person-centered multicultural counseling. They give several illuminating anecdotal examples of person-centered counseling in a multicultural setting. Ultimately, the Glauser and Bazarth warn of the danger of using cultural, gender or race-related stereotypes to guide counselling in a multicultural setting "Assumptions about people (clients) thwart their ability to seize chance experiences and discover and use personal, inner resources (extratherapeutic variables) in creative, productive ways."

Critique

Glauser and Bazarth are highly consistent in "Person-Centered counseling: The culture." They provide a wide variety of evidence, and cite an impressive number of studies in proving their main thesis that person-centered counselling is at the very heart of success in counseling. Further, they adequately explain the key variables in their theory (the variable of the relationship between the client and counselor, and extratherapeutic variables), and successfully relate these variables to their main thesis. The authors also successfully defend their position that the "specificity myth" is ultimately damaging to successful counselling with well thought-out arguments, and an abundance of evidence.

Clearly, Glauser and Bazarth have a strong bias toward an individualistic perception of the world. They warn sternly against making judgements based on race, gender, or nationality, and note emphatically that identity "resides within the individual, that is, it is the culture within the individual."