The Outcomes of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Theory and Research

The Outcomes of Counseling and Psychotherapy was first published in 1965. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

How is the future behavior of a client or patient affected by counseling, casework, or psychotherapy? What fundamental personality changes, if any, can be attributed to such treatment? What does the counselor do that determines the outcome of his efforts? This volume deals with questions like these, questions which concern not only psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other counselors, but also the communities, institutions, and agencies which support their work.

The report presented here is based on the findings of a ten-year project conducted at the University of Minnesota Student Counseling Bureau to assess the results of its counseling program. Since the early days of counseling at Minnesota, many studies, in a research program extending over a period of thirty years, have attempted to determine the effectiveness of counseling. In continuing these studies, the present authors have applied current statistical methods to contemporary counseling theory and practices. This account of the search for specific variables that define the goals of counseling, and for instruments to measure those variables objectively, is an important contribution to future research in the field. Ralph F. Berdie, director of the University of Minnesota Student Counseling Bureau, writes a foreword.