Congruence of Counselor Self-Disclosure and Perceived Effectiveness

The first research article I read for this assignment was Congruence of Counselor Self-Disclosure and Perceived Effectiveness by Scott J. Nyman, and Timothy K. Daugherty. This journal article documents an empirical study conducted by Scott Nyman and Timothy Daugherty examining the effect of counselor self-disclosure on the relationship between counselor and client.
Counselors and researchers differ in their opinions regarding the use of self-disclosure. Some consider it a means to establishing a more effective relationship with patients, especially those from “diverse backgrounds or alternate lifestyles”(Nyman p.269) While others view counselor self-disclosure as having “potentially hazardous patient outcomes” (Nyman p.270). They argue self- disclosure by the counselor “can burden the client with too much information and have a negative effect on the self exploration of the client”(Nyman, p. 270). They also claim counselor self-disclosure may have the potential to cause the client to lose his perceived sense of safety and trust in the counselor and in an extreme case, result in iatrogenesis by causing the client to recall a traumatic situation suffered in the past and ”jeopardize the counseling outcome” (Nyman, p. 270).
On the positive side, a study of long- term psychotherapy patients conducted by Knox, Hess, Peterson, and Hill in 1997, determined that counselor self-disclosure was seen by patients as being very positive and described their counselors as “real, human, and the relationship balanced” (Nyman p. 270). In addition other studies have found that “high self-disclosing counselors were viewed as being more expert and trustworthy than low self-disclosing counselors” (Nyman, p.270).
Although re...

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.../she prays is hardly enough information to rate a counselor on the attributes that were listed on the shortened version of the CRF-S. A lot more information would be needed if one is looking for valid ratings of a counselor’s Expertness, Trustworthiness, and Attractiveness. Actually showing two separate videos of real or mock therapy sessions in place of the 2 page long excerpts would provide the study group with a much better base for rating the counselors accurately. As far as the instrument used for rating the counselors, it would probably result in more valid results if the researchers used a better rating form than the shortened version of the CRF-S rating scale.

Works Cited

Nyman, S. J., & Daugherty, T. K. (2001). Congruence of Counselor Self-Disclosure and Perceived Effectiveness. The Journal of Psychology, 135(3), 269-276. doi: 10.1080/00223980109603697