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THE EFFECTS OF PARADOXICAL DIRECTIVES IN A BRIEF COUNSELING SITUATION
Abstract
Historically, one of the central issues in counseling theory is whether the counselor should direct the client in the process of therapeutic change. One argument is that all forms of therapeutic interaction involve an interpersonal influence which makes it impossible for the counselor not to influence the client in some way (Strong, 1978). One method of therapeutic influence is the paradoxical directive. The therapist's rationale is aimed at diminishing the problem behavior, where the paradoxical directive explicitly encourages the individual to perform the same behavior (Haley, 1976). Thus, a client is caught in a situation that demands doing more of something in order to diminish the problem behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of a paradoxical directive that stimulate a client to defy the directive, as opposed to a directive that presents an illusion of choice that will encourage the client to comply. A second purpose of the study was to examine procrastination behavior and the effects of the previous paradoxical conditions on those behaviors. Thirty students were interviewed by experienced counseling psychology graduate students. After each interview, the subjects responded to three dependent variables: the Procrastination Inventory, the Procrastination Log, and a Questionnaire. Subjects were asked to complete the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. Scripts, which were memorized by the interviewers, prescribed the subjects either continue an exact performance of their procrastination behavior or some performance of their procrastination behavior. Means, standard deviations, and statistical tests of significance (F and p values) revealed no significant differences between the two experimental conditions (exactly versus some). Compared to the control group, the experimental conditions were highly significant (p < .001 and p < .005) with regard to decreased procrastination behavior and justification, and increased motivation, satisfaction, expectation to change, effort, and controllability. As indicated by the review of literature, Rosen (1953) described his paradoxical directive as that of prescribing the behavior which anticipates the client's irrational response and thus sets the client against the symptom instead of against the therapist. The paradoxical directives clearly influenced the decrease in procrastination over the experimental period. The finding that there was a significant difference between time one and time three on each scale of the dependent variables suggests that one of the initial effects of a paradoxical instruction is the "inhibition" or "upsetting" of subject views such as expectations to change (Greenburg, 1973). The findings were highly significant in demonstrating the usefulness of paradoxes on procrastination behavior.
Subject Area
School counseling
Recommended Citation
WRIGHT, R. MICKEY, "THE EFFECTS OF PARADOXICAL DIRECTIVES IN A BRIEF COUNSELING SITUATION" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8127166.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8127166