AN INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELECT CLIENT, THERAPIST, AND SYSTEM VARIABLES AND DURATION OF COUNSELING

For quite some time, behavioral science researchers have been involved in attempting to account for the wide variability in duration of counseling. Past efforts have focused primarily on client variables and a select group of therapist variables. Moreover, these efforts have utilized community mental health center or psychiatric clinic samples. On the whole, these investigations have yielded inconsistent and often conflicting results. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between client, therapist, and system variables and duration of counseling with a college student sample.;Data for the study consisted of initial interview responses from 428 college counseling center clients and 17 therapists at a large midwestern university during the entire fall semester of 1981. Client data consisted of self-assessed demographic, expectancy, and presenting problem information. Therapist data consisted of demographic information and judgments pertaining to the client. System variables were variables that the counseling center introduced into the counseling process.;The analysis of the data for this study was conducted in two phases. In the preliminary data analysis phase the large number of independent variables was reduced to 12 variables by the utilization of non-parametric statistical tests. In the final data analysis phase a step-wise multiple regression analysis was performed using these twelve independent variables and duration of counseling.;The results of the final analysis indicated that six out of the twelve independent variables significantly related to duration. Together these six variables accounted for 23 per cent of the variance in duration of counseling. Five out of the six variables were client variables that related to client age, projected counseling duration, and perception of their problem. The only significant non-client variable was the therapist immediate problem diagnosis of eating disorder.;In general, the findings of this study suggest that pre-treatment client judgment variables together exert a relatively strong influence on duration of counseling. Finally, it is argued that future research efforts attempting to delineate factors relating to duration should not only consider pre-treatment client judgment variables but also variables pertaining to the other phases of the counseling process. For example, promising inquiry might be focused upon the relationship between the perceived presence or absence of core conditions in the relationship phase and duration of counseling.