Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
THE EFFECTS OF COUNSELOR-CLIENT CONVERGENCE AND SIMILARITY OF VALUES AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON IMPROVEMENT (THERAPY)
Abstract
Counseling has often been conceptualized as value- and religion-free. This study investigates the basis for assuming otherwise and that client improvement may, in fact, be dependent upon the interplay of the client's and counselor's religious values and religious orientations (ranging from conservative to liberal). Thirty clients and their 16 counselors at a large Mid-west university counseling center were pre- and post-tested for religious values and religious orientations. The three variables of counselor-client initial dissimilarity, post dissimilarity, and convergence (i.e., increasing similarity) on both measures were correlated with the clients' self ratings of improvement (CIR) and their counselors' rating of client improvement (TIR) at post (after 5-8 sessions). The hypotheses that convergence would significantly correlate with improvement was supported only with TIR. Counselors believed that their clients improved when the clients' religious values or orientation became more similar to their own. The hypotheses that dissimilarity would significantly correlate with improvement was also supported. Clients rated greater self-improvement when their counselors (1) had significantly different religious values prior to counseling and (2) when their counselors were more conservative in their religious orientation at either pre- or post-testing. Counselors rated greater client improvement (1) when their clients were less conservative in religious orientation at either pre- or post-testing, (2) when their clients had lower religious values than themselves at post-testing, and when their clients' (3) religious values and (4) religious orientation became more like their counselors', (5) particularly when the counselor had higher religious values. This study's implications include the questioning of the value-free myth of counseling, that successful counseling may be dependent upon client convergence of religious values and orientation, and that counselor-client dissimilarity, long an undesired relationship, may prove positive for improvement. Most importantly, this study re-emphasizes the need to acknowledge and understand the importance of values and religious beliefs in counseling.
Subject Area
Academic guidance counseling
Recommended Citation
MARTINEZ, FRANK ISAAC, "THE EFFECTS OF COUNSELOR-CLIENT CONVERGENCE AND SIMILARITY OF VALUES AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON IMPROVEMENT (THERAPY)" (1986). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8629535.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8629535