Implications of Counselor Conceptualizations for Counselor Education

research article

Implications of Counselor Conceptualizations

for Counselor Education

ANNE L. CUMMINGS ERNEST T. HALLBERG

JACK MARTIN ALAN SLEMON

BRYAN HIEBERT

Conceptualizations of novice and experienced counselors are examined to determine how they view client problems and change in counseling.

Many counselor education programs begin the training of counselors with a practicum course in which students are taught basic counseling skills (e.g., empathy, feedback, questioning, confrontation, and so forth). However, as Martin (1990) asserted, skill training alone does not provide counselors with the necessary knowledge base concerning the purposes, conditions, and contexts associated with effective use of a particular counseling skill. Helping to develop schemata that students can use to conceptualize clients and their concerns is a much more complex process than skill development alone. The question becomes, “How do we encourage students to think more deeply, process information more broadly, and conceptualize clients and counseling more adequately?”

Some research has attempted to access the in-session cognitions of novice counselors. Through examination of the thoughts of one novice counselor, Borders, Fong-Beyette, and Cron (1988) found

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Anne L. Cummings is an assistant professor, Ernest T. Hallberg is an associate professor. Jack Martin is a professor, and Alan Slemon is a professor, all at the University ofwestern Ontario, London, Ontarlo. Bryan Hiebert is an associateprofessor at the University of Calgary, Alberta.

120 COUNSELOR EDUCATION AND SUPERVISION / DECEMBER 1990 / VOL. 30

that this novice had few intentional thoughts and little awareness of general, global influences on counseling processes, such as the in- teractive counselor-client relationship. The cognitions of the novice frequently were expressed in all-or-none thinking, with concern for rules and procedures of counseling dominating. This finding is not surprising given the preoccupation of most beginning counselors with performing in the “right” way. It may indicate, however, a need for developing methods to help counseling students move beyond these procedural concerns to thinking in qualitatively different and more elaborative, abstract ways about counseling and clients.

One approach to enhancing our understanding of the conceptualizing capabilities of counselors is to study differences in conceptualizations of novice and experienced counselors. These differences may suggest educational interventions that might enhance the conceptual capabilities of both novice and experienced counselors.

A measure that has been used to examine conceptualizations of both clients and counselors is the Cognitive Mapping Task (CMT) (Hiebert, 1987; Martin, 1985, 1987; Martin, Slemon, Hiebert, Hallberg, & Cummings, 1989). It consists of two parts: (a) a free- association task used to generate a number of concepts and (b) a conceptual mapping on paper of the concepts generated. The result- ing product provides a rich window into the conceptual processes of the respondents.

Martin et al. ( 1989) used the CMT to examine differences in conceptualizations of novice and experienced counselors concerning change in counseling and individual client problems. For specific client problems, they found that novice counselors generated a greater number of concepts than experienced counselors, whereas experienced counselors produced a slightly greater number of concepts than novice counselors when conceptualizing counseling in general. The authors interpreted these findings to mean that, as with experts in well-structured domains, such as physics and math- ematics (cf. Chi, Glaser, & Rees, 1982). the experienced counselors made efficient. parsimonious use of more elaborated, entrenched, general schemata for conceptualizing specific client problems. Con- versely, novice counselors, who had not yet developed more elaborated general conceptualizations, required more client-specific concepts to conceptualize individual client problems.

The research by Martin et al. (1989) provides information about quantitative aspects of counselors’ conceptualizations. The actual content of the concepts generated by counselors in their study was not examined. Thus, a more qualitative analysis of concepts generated by counselors may provide a clearer picture of possible content differences in the conceptualization processes of novice and experienced counselors.

COUNSELOR EDUCATION AND SUPERVISION / DECEMBER 1990 / VOL. 30 121

The purpose of the current study was to perform an in-depth content analysis of the conceptualizations of two novice and two experienced counselors about change in counseling and about specific client problems. On the basis of previous research comparing novices and experts in counseling and other fields (Chi et al.. 1982; Hill, Charles, & Reed, 1981; Thompson, 1986). several a priori hypotheses were developed.

First, novices might be expected to show less consistency in conceptualizations both about change in counseling and specific client problems across time because they are still in the formative stages of their own personal theory building about clients and counseling. Experienced counselors, however, might be expected to demon- strate greater consistency of concepts over time because they have consolidated their personal theories about clients and counseling. This hypothesis is based on research comparing expert and novice problem solvers in highly-structured contexts (cf. Chi et al.. 1982; Norman. 1985) that shows that experts (experienced) seem to have deep-level conceptualizations that help them organize surface ele- ments into more abstract schemata. Although some counselors might argue that research in highly structured problem solving does not apply to ill-defined counseling contexts, Pace (1988) presented a strong case for schema-based processing being particularly ap- plicable to the ambiguous and complex processes that occur in counseling.

Second, it was hypothesized that for specific client problems experienced counselors, as compared with novice counselors, would be more likely to include concepts that consider interpersonal interactions and view the client as part of a social system. In reviewing literature concerning cognitive differences between expert and novice counselors, Hillerbrand (1989) noted that experts seem better able to conceptualize clients and recognize interpersonal processes.

And third, experienced counselors are likely to show more concern for domain-speciflc, thematic material when conceptualizing individual clients, whereas novice counselors are likely to employ more procedural concepts (e.g., speciAc counseling skills). This hypothesis is derived from research on problem solving in highly structured domains that indicates that experts have more domain- specific schemata that they activate to arrive at problem solutions emciently. whereas novices tend to get caught up in the details of the problem (Voss, Green, Post, & Penner, 1983). Pace (1988) believed that counselors with well-developed, elaborated schemata are better able to orient themselves to the core patterns and deep structures underlying the behavior and symptoms of the client. Pace asserted that these schemata of counselors are developed through experience.

122 COUNSELOR EDUCAIION AND SUPERVISION / DECEMBER 1990 / VOL. 30

Participants From a total of 23 counselors in a larger study (Martin et al.. 1989). data for four counselors (two novice and two experienced) were selected for more in-depth, qualitative analysis. For the current study, we examined the CMTs completed by 10 counselors from one of the sites in the Martin et al. (1989) study. A panel of three doctoral level psychologists and three master's level research assistants, who were blind to the experience level of the counselors who had produced these CMTs. were asked individually to determine which CMTs were produced by novice counselors and which by experienced counselors. Of the ten sets of CMTs, all six judges ac- curately identified the CMTs of two novices and two experienced counselors. These four CMTs were used for the qualitative analyses. It could be argued that these four CMTs are not representative of counselors in general but only represent stereotypes of novice and experienced counselors. Although there is some merit in this criticism, researchers often study the two extreme ends on a continuum to gain a better understanding of a phenomenon, with the realization that distinctions are more blurred for people in the mid- dle of any continuum. Furthermore, although the panel of six judges correctly identified these four sets of CMTs as produced by the novice and experienced counselors, the bases for their judgments were not articulated.

The two experienced counselors (two women) had doctoral degrees in psychology and had more than 4 years of counseling experience. The two novice counselors (one man, one woman) were interns in the second year of a master's program in counseling. All four counselors worked in the same university counseling center and volun- teered to participate in the study. The counselors used a person- centered, cognitive-behavioral approach to counseling.

Procedure To assess counselors' conceptualizations, Martin et al. (1989) employed a CMT. Production of the CMT responses involved the following steps: (a) a research assistant (RA) asks the counselor to free associate for 1 minute to one of two stimulus questions: (b) the RA records each counselor's responses on small rectangular gummed stickers; (c) counselors arrange their responses on a large sheet of plastic-covered graph paper into a conceptual map repre- senting how the different concepts are related: (d) counselors draw connecting lines between concepts that are closely related; and (e) counselors draw a circle around any cluster of concepts that belong together and label the cluster. After these steps had been completed

COUNSELOR EDUCATION AND SUPEFZVISION / DECEMBER 1990 / VOL. 30 123

for one of the two stimulus questions (“Generally speaking, what happens to help clients change during counseling?” and “What are the most important things to consider with respect to [client‘s namel’s problems?”), participating counselors repeated them for the second stimulus question.

Data were collected from the counselors immediately following the second, fourth, and sixth counseling sessions with each of two clients from the counselors’ regular case loads. In all cases, counseling conthued with the clients beyond the sixth session to a maximum of 12 sessions.

The qualitative analyses for the current study were performed by the first two authors guided by the three hypotheses discussed pre- viously. They used discussion and consensus to reach Rnal agree- ment on the following categories: (a) consistency in concepts for each counselor’s CMTs over time on both questions for each client, (b) number of concepts indicative of interpersonal interaction on the CMTs for the client problem question, and (c) domain-specific concepts versus procedural concepts in response to the client question. Dehitions and examples of these concepts are found in Table 1.

RESULTS

To determine consistency in concepts generated by individual counselors to describe the change process in short-term counseling (general question, or first stimulus question) and to describe specific client problems (specific question, or second stimulus question), a

TABLE 1 Definitions and Examples of Concept Categories

Concept Definition Examples

Interpersonal Concepts indicating interpersonal Relationships interaction processes in client’s environment, Family background

or acknowledging outside Social support influences on client’s problem. Client is viewed within a situational context.

thematic, linking material about Self-esteem client; core patterns and deep structures that underlie client behavior.

Procedural Procedural knowledge of specific Confrontation

Environmental influences

Domain specific Declarative knowledge of Irrational beliefs

Dependency issues

counseling skills and techniques Encouragement used by counselor. Goal setting

124 COUNSELOR EDUCAl’lON AND SUPERVISION / DECEMBER 1990 / VOL. 30

proportion was calculated. The number of repeated concepts ap- pearing on all three CMTs (after the second, fourth, and sixth inter- view) was tallied for both clients on each question and divided by the total number of concepts for that question. This procedure resulted in a proportion for each counselor for both the general and specific question across both clients as shown in Table 2. As predicted, experienced counselors displayed greater consistency in the concepts they employed than did the novice counselors on both questions, although this was more evident on the general question about change in counseling than on the specific question concerning individual client problems.

With respect to interpersonal interaction, concepts on the specific question were examined for indications of both outside influences on the client problem and interactions with other people in the client‘s environment. As predicted, experienced counselors employed a greater number of interactional concepts in their conceptualizations of individual clients (see Table 3). In addition, these interpersonal concepts were among those that the experienced counselors repeated from one CMT to the next, perhaps indicating the overall importance of these ideas in the conceptualization schemata employed by these two experienced counselors.

An examination of Figure 1 (experienced counselor #2; see pp. 128-129) and Figure 2 (novice counselor #2; see pp. 130-131) reveals the contrast between these particular experienced and novice counselors on the specific question with respect to the first two hypotheses tested. The experienced counselor used the concepts of family background and current relationships as a starting point for conceptualizing the client problem and repeated these concepts over time. On the other hand, the novice used no interactional concepts on either CMT.

Finally. concepts on the specific client question were assessed for domain-speciflc concepts (i.e., knowledge “about”) or procedural concepts (i.e., “how to” knowledge). Table 3 shows that, as predicted, experienced counselors tended to use more domain-specific concepts than novices and used no procedural concepts. Experienced counselors tended to focus on broad descriptive concepts about the client and did not appear to be concerned about the procedures of counseling. With the novice counselors, one produced six procedural concepts, whereas the other novice produced no procedural concepts. Therefore, no deflnite conclusions can be drawn concerning novice use of procedural concepts in response to the specific question.

When the concepts on the CMTs for client problem are examined more closely, several interesting nonhypothesized patterns emerge. Both experienced counselors conceptualized both of their clients’


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TABLE 3 Number of Concepts for Two Clients Combined

for the Specific Question on Three Different Categories

Specific client problem guestion Number of Number of Number of

interpersonal interaction domain-specific procedural Counselors concepts concepts concepts

Novice #1 5 6 0 Novice #2 1 8 6 Experienced #1 13 11 0 Experienced #2 13 18 0

problems as involving three main factors: family background and other outside influences, self, and the specific situation. These factors appear on all CMTs and are depicted graphically by intercon- nected clusters that highlight these three factors. One novice counselor mentioned family and environmental factors for one client, but not as core, repeated clusters. The other novice made no use of “family” clusters.

Within these general clusters, both of the experienced counselors used four identical concepts repeated at all three testings for both of their clients: family relationships, interpersonal relationships. self-esteem, and self-concept. Although the novice counselors employed a few concepts more than once, these concepts did not appear at every testing for both clients and were different from the four repeated concepts of the experienced counselors. Although it is possible that the four clients of the experienced counselors coin- cidentally presented similar concerns, it seems more likely that the four identical concepts represent schemata that these experienced counselors activated systematically to conceptualize many of their clients within a university counseling context.

DISCUSSION Although the qualitative analysis of the CMT responses of counselors in our study is by no means exhaustive, it does provide a contrast between two novice and two experienced counselors in the nature and consistency of concepts they used to understand counseling and client problems. Our hding of consistency of concepts over time and between clients for experienced counselors suggests that these counselors possess well-developed underlying schemata for explaining how change occurs in short-term counseling and for conceptualizing individual client problems.

The concepts that experienced counselors tended to repeat over the three sessions were domain-specific, thematic concepts. One


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example of these concepts is the interpersonal interaction concepts employed by the experienced counselors. These counselors seemed to be more aware of the complex social and interpersonal context within which client problems occur. Another example is the four concepts (family background, interpersonal relationships, self- esteem, and self-concept) repeated by both experienced counselors in response to the specific client question across both clients. The experienced counselors we studied seemed to organize incoming information into efficient patterns to aid their understanding of individual clients. These findings provide some evidence that experienced counselors possess more well-developed schemata for conceptualizing counseling and client problems than do novice counselors. For example, it is likely that the experienced counselors learned through educational study and experience with a university client population that self-concept is a core schema needed for a full understanding of many of their clients.

As with experts in other fields, it seems that a combination of experience and training provides counselors with a parsimonious set of deep-level schemata that can be activated consistently to assist in conceptualizing individual clients (Martin et al., 1989). As Hillerbrand (1989) noted, the advantage of such schemata is that they reduce demands on cognitive processing by removing unneces- sary, redundant information and allowing the experienced counselor to concentrate on the unique material presented by individual clients.

In contrast, it is not clear if the novices we studied possessed discernible schemata for conceptualizing counseling and clients. They seemed to have employed a dynamic, shifting series of surface- level concepts descriptive of client characteristics and counselor activities. The novice counselors seemed to be influenced greatly by unrelated, detached information emerging from each separate counseling session.

When the procedural concepts are considered, it is not surprising that the experienced counselors used none. The counseling process is probably so well established for them that they do not focus on what they “do.” It was predicted that the novice counselors would have a greater number of procedural concepts because of their tendency to be preoccupied with performance. While one novice, however, had a number of procedural concepts, the other novice had none. Further research with a larger number of novice counselors is needed to test this particular hypothesis.

Our analysis of the CMTs of novice and experienced counselors has yielded information with possible implications for the education of counselors. I t seems that the novices in our study lacked the domain-specific schemata that perhaps aid experienced counselors


in emciently conceptualizing Counseling processes and individual clients. Pace (1988) believed that a schema perspective in counselor education might help to orient counselors to the deep structures, core schemata, and developmental issues underlying client symptoms. As schemata are generally acquired through experience and education, it may be important to provide beginning counselors with educational experiences that encourage them to be aware of the heuristics they employ in conceptualizing their clients, to articulate how they distinguish relevant from irrelevant information, and to help them organize conceptual information (Hillerbrand, 1989). For example, what schemata do counselors use for conceptualizing an incest survivor? How are these schemata different from schemata employed for a client with an eating disorder? What predictions might be made about change in counseling based on these different schemata?

One approach to helping counseling students become aware of their own conceptualizations and of assisting the development of more elaborated schemata for counseling is the CMT employed in this study. Having students regularly map the concepts they employ to conceptualize a particular client over time might encourage them to begin conceptualizing their clients in more explicitly conscious ways. In addition, if counseling supervisors had access to a visual map of their students’ conceptualizing. they might be better able to help students develop more efficient and appropriate schemata for conceptualizing clients and the counseling process. As counselor educators, we are constantly being pressured by

students to tell them what to “do” with a particular client. Although skill development and action plans have their place in counselor education programs, there is a need to include in the curriculum an emphasis on “thinking about” or conceptualizing client themes and patterns. Students need to be helped to develop competing hypotheses about clients so that the students can better appreciate the ambiguity of the counseling process, rather than expecting linear, lockstep solutions to complex human problems.

We believe that our detailed analyses of the C K s of novice and experienced counselors have provided rich data for understanding better the cognitive processes and schemata used by these counselors in short-term counseling within a university context. The ability to generalize our results, however, is severely limited by our small sample size and by our selection of counselors who were clearly more and less experienced. Therefore, while our data are congruent with those found in previous research on experts and novices in other fields. these data provide only a starting point for future counseling research with larger and more varied samples of counselors and clients.


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Hffl, C. E.. Charles, D.. i?i Reed, K. G. (1981). A longitudinal analysis of changes in counseling sktlls during doctoral training in counseling psychology. Journal of

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Martin, J., Slemon. A. G., Hiebert. B., Hallberg. E. T.. & Cummings, A. L. (1989). Conceptualizations of novice and experienced counselors. Journal of Counseling

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Thompson. A. P. (1986). Changes in counseling skill during graduate and under- graduate study. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 33,6572.

Voss, J. F.. Green, T. R. Post, T. A. & Penner. B. C. (1983). Problem solvlng skill in the sodal sciences. In G. Gower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motiuation (Vol. 17. pp. 165-213). New York Academic.

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Authors’ Notes. The authors acknowledge the assistance of Arlene Devrome, Geoff Crealock. Betty Edwards, Leslie Gauthier, Brynah Schneider, and Karl Stelmaczonek in conducting the research re- ported. Support for this research was provided by Grant 410-86- 0225 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. An earlier version of this article was presented at the American Psychological Association Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, August 1989. Correspondence concerning this article should be directed to Anne Cummings, Counselling Psychology Re- search Group, Faculty of Education, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6G 1G7.


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Implications of Counselor Conceptualizations for Counselor Education