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Abstract
This research examined the relationships of counselor and client worldviews, their views about gender roles, and their role expectancies about counseling. Worldviews were operationalized as Organicism, Harmonizing, and Endeavoring; gender role identifications as Masculine Gender Role and Feminine Gender Role; and counseling role expectancies as Nurturant Counseling Role Expectancy and Self-Reliant Counseling Role Expectancy.
Counselors and their clients whom the counselors were helping volunteered to be surveyed. Participants were counselors and their clients from the counseling psychology training program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL); licensed professional counselors and their clients from private practices and community agencies in Nebraska; and counselors and their clients from university counseling centers across the country. Data from 188 participants were analyzed which consisted of 94 clients and 94 counselors.
The counselors showed significantly higher scores on Organicism and on Masculine Gender Role than did their clients. The clients were significantly higher on Self-Reliant Role Expectancy than were their counselors. Pearson correlations showed the relationships between the scores obtained on each variable by each group and the difference between the counselors' and the clients' scores on each variable. The counselors and clients were different across the board. Significant negative correlations on Organicism, Harmonizing, Masculine Gender Role, and Feminine Gender Role indicated that many clients had low scores and many counselors high scores on these variables. Clients who scored high on Nurturant Role Expectancy and Self-Reliant Role Expectancy shared less of these characteristics with their counselors.
Three-step forced entry multiple regressions indicated that there were no significant predictors for the counselors' Counseling Role Expectancies. For the clients, Harmonizing and Endeavoring worldviews individually made significant predictions for the Nurturant Counseling Role Expectancy, with Harmonizing making a negative contribution. Endeavoring significantly predicted the Self-Reliant Counseling Role Expectancy for the clients.
A major implication of this study is that counselors cannot assume that their views (whether they be worldviews, gender role identity, or expectancies about the counseling process) are shared by their clients. Counselors' awareness of their own views and values and accurate assessment of their clients' perspective on these issues are essential for the counseling process to be made consistent with client needs and processes. Client-counselor differences need to be attended to early in therapy.
