Counselor self-efficacy and client satisfaction

This post is taken from a Christian psychologist who teaches at Biblical Seminary. I encourage you all to check out his blog if you are interested in an experienced clinician and professors thoughts on faith and Psychology. Here is a post that I thought would be relevant to my classmates beginning their clinical work:

Each Monday I am going to try to discuss interesting research that relates to counseling process and interventions. In the latest Journal of Counseling Psychology (53:4), a group of U of Maryland researchers looked at how novice counselors felt about their capacities to counsel. The assumption is that counselors who possess adequate sense of capacity to help will provide more helpful counseling responses, will work harder when problems arise, and convey a greater sense of professionalism. Makes sense. If you think you are going to be able to do something, you’re more likely to succeed. If all you can think is that you are a failure, you’re likely to be one. This study looked at both general confidence and client-specific confidence (some may have general confidence but when put in a specific situation find that they lack the confidence they need). General counselor confidence is predictive of a counselor’s comfort with the role of counselor and their likelihood of pursuing a career. But what of the client-specific confidence?

While they made numerous findings, the one that interested me is that higher counselor confidence correlates with higher client satisfaction over the course of the therapy. Why is that? Well, for one, if the counselor portrays herself as competent, then the client will likely perceive that the work is going well. Obviously there is a limit to this correlation. At some point we all realize that the Wizard of Oz is only the little man behind the curtain. However, if a counselor is lacking in confidence, it probably makes him less able to hear and focus on the client since he is focusing on his lack of capacity. The client will sense this and not want to engage. I’m sure this is similar to sales. If you believe you can make the sale, your focus is on the person you want to sell to. If you think you can’t sell your product, it’ll sound like, “you probably don’t want to buy this and I’m not any good at selling, so I’ll be going now…”

Lent, R.W. et al (2006). Client-specific counselor self-efficacy in novice counselors: Relation to perceptions of session quality. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53:4, 453-463.