Personality factors in counseling

As a worker in the field of counseling and psychotherapy, Dr. Curran has taken a single case in which all of the interviews were phonographically recorded and has made an exhaustive analysis of the way in which the forces of growth and development were released in this individual. The excerpts which are given from these interviews illustrate the dramatic change from a withdrawn, conflicted, unhappy adolescent to an adult with a dawning sense of worth, a feeling of independence, and a confident capacity to deal with his world. It is significant that sufficient progress has been made in the development of psychotherapeutic procedures that these changes are brought about in the course of twenty interviews. It is equally important that research skills have likewise developed so that the fluid interchange of speech, thought, and emotion in the interview can be analyzed with a considerable degree of objectivity. It is this scientific analysis of the counseling process which gives this book its special worth, and makes it of value to serious workers in the field of counseling. Although it is this objective research which is the heart and purpose of the book, Dr. Curran has also revealed the counselor's attitudes and techniques--those tools of the therapist which create the possibility of change in the individual. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).