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The Influence of CounselorEpistemology on the Helping Interview:A Qualitative StudyGarrett McAuliffe and Christopher Lovell

EThe relationship between certain personal qualities of a counselor and the outcomes of counseling has been wellestablished. In this qualitative study, the authors sought to extend this understanding by examining the relationshipbetween the personal epistemologies of counselor trainees and their interview behaviors. Five distinguishingthemes emerged.

As counselor educators, we noticed a curious and dauntingphenomenon in our teaching of beginning counseling skillscourses: Despite experiential learning, demonstration, struc-turing of microskills, cajoling, inspiring, and pleading withstudents about the importance of being person-centered andbeing attuned to client differences in temperament, personal-ity, and situation, we found that a small percentage of begin-ning students just "didn't get it" by the end of the class. Theystill tended to be rote, authoritarian, concrete, and withoutinsight about clients' concerns. We wondered what distin-guished these students from those who made great progress inconducting helping interviews with clients.

With this concern in mind, we turned to the literature oncounselor learning and counselor effectiveness. We found thatthe effectiveness of counseling lies largely in the person ofthe counselor rather than in the techniques used (Fiedler, 1950;Rogers, 1951; Wampold, 2001). Empathy emerged as the stron-gest of those personal characteristics (Wampold, 2001;Whiston & Sexton, 1993). Other specific counselor attributesthat are predictive of positive counseling outcome, such asself-awareness, insight, and reflectiveness, were also begin-ning to be demonstrated empirically as being crucial charac-teristics of the effective counselor (Wampold, 2001).

Because of our familiarity with constructs and researchfrom an area of developmental psychology increasingly calleddevelopmental epistemology, we speculated that a counselor'sstage of epistemological development might be a powerfulindicator of readiness to take on the complex work of thecounseling interview. Although there are "various ways toconceptualize the process of knowing, or epistemology, as itapplies to the counseling situation" (Hansen, 2004, p. 131),

our conceptual bias is toward the developmental perspective.Although closely allied to cognitive developmental psychol-ogy, developmental epistemology takes as its specific focushow human meaning making evolves over time and in vari-ous environments (e.g., Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, &Tarule, 1986; Kegan, 1982, 1994; Kohlberg, 1984; Perry,1970). We wondered whether the personal epistemologicalleanings of our counselor trainees who had problems con-ducting helping interviews effectively, in fact, limited theirability to weigh and choose helpful behaviors with clients.We knew instructional methods had been developed (e.g.,Knelfelkamp, 1974; Sprinthall, 1994) that might trigger epis-temological development in the very counselor trainees whomwe found to have problems in the helping interview, so wewere hopeful of eventually adjusting our teaching in waysthat might be beneficial. All that was needed was some dem-onstration that personal epistemology did, in fact, affect be-havior in the helping interview. Thus, we set about conduct-ing a qualitative study of counselor trainees' actual helpinginterviews. We sought-by analyzing thematic content fromthe interviews-to, discover and describe any relationshipbetween (a) a counselor's propensity for a certain develop-mental-epistemological "position" (Perry, 1970) and (b) thesame counselor's behavior in a counseling interview.

*Developmental EpistemologyDevelopmental epistemology can be defined as the study ofhow a person's construction of knowledge and knowingevolves over the life span (Kegan, 1982). At least from the timeof the generative work of Piaget (1954) and Kohlberg (1984),

Garrett McAuliffe and Christopher Lovell, Counseling Program, College of Education, Old Dominion University. The authorsthank Stephanie Stone, Steven Zerwas, Mark Blagen, and Debra Boyce for their contributions to this study. Correspondenceconcerning this article should be addressed to Garrett McAuliffe, College of Education, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA23529 (e-mail: gmcaulif@odu.edu).

© 2006 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.

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personal epistemology (i.e., a person's logic about knowing)has been seen as a developmental (that is, an evolving) char-acteristic of individuals. Since the 1970s, a substantial litera-ture on epistemological development in adulthood hasemerged (e.g., Belenky et al., 1986; Kegan, 1982, 1994; Perry,1970). Developmental theorists have proposed that such quali-ties as dogmatism, conformism, rigidity, and the like can betreated as dimensions of fundamental patterns of cognitivestructuring in persons and not as isolated traits. With devel-opment, the cognitive structures change; they go throughwell-charted developmental levels that have been variouslycharacterized as stages (Kohlberg, 1984; Piaget, 1954), posi-tions (Perry, 1970), ways of knowing (Belenky et al., 1986),and orders of consciousness (Kegan, 1994).

Perry's (1970) theory of intellectual and ethical develop-ment, generally called the Perry Scheme, provides a "map"for such development in adulthood. Perry proposed, basedon his research with college students, that individuals canmove from a more rigid or authoritarian position (dualism),through positions of multiplicity, to a pluralistic and context-sensitive position (relativism). For the dualist, truths are ab-solute and are known by authorities. In contrast, with move-ment into relativism, an individual becomes aware that aperson must think for her- or himself and that knowledge isconstructed in a community of such thinkers. It should benoted that these categories are "soft"; that is, although indi-viduals may prefer one position, they may sometimes usereasoning from earlier positions as well as intimate a moreadvanced position (Creamer & Associates, 1990).

The Perry Scheme is particularly appropriate for a study ofcounselor characteristics. Strong relationships between rela-tivism and such important counselor characteristics as empa-thy (Lovell, 1999a; Neukrug & McAuliffe, 1993), open-mindedness (Neukrug & McAuliffe, 1993), and divergent think-ing (Sweeney, 1996) have been shown. Given the relativelyunstructured nature of counseling work, relativism is likely tobe an important precondition for much of effective counseling.In fact, Cebik (1985), Granello and Hazler (1998), and Paisleyand Benshoff (1998) have all urged counselor education totake a developmental turn, guided by the assumptions thatrelativism is required for the complex work of counseling andthat epistemological development can be positively influencedin programs of counselor education; however, there have beenmixed results in many of the studies of counselor development.For a positive example, using the Perry Scheme to disaggregatea sample of counseling master's-degree students, Granello (2002)found a linear relationship between chronological level in thecounseling program and Perry position. Another positive study(Duys & Hedstrom, 2000) found that a counselor basic skillscourse had an effect on cognitive complexity, one of the episte-mological-developmental dimensions noted by Perry (Moore,1989). In earlier work, though, ambiguous findings causedBorders and Fong (1989) and Fong, Borders, Ethington, andPitts (1997) to declare that the evidence for the relationship

between development and counseling effectiveness was in-conclusive (Borders & Fong, 1989), and even puzzling (that is,contrary to expectations) in Fong et al.'s study. Given this un-certainty about the linkage between development and the workof the counselor, we took an inductive, discovery-oriented ap-proach in this study toward gaining greater clarity. Our initialguiding research question was "What is the relationship be-tween counselor trainees' epistemologies and their interviewbehaviors?"

EMethodIt was the purpose of this study to discover relationships, ifany, between counselor trainees' personal epistemologicallevels and their behaviors in counseling interview sessions.Toward that end, we chose a qualitative method. Until now,studies of counselor development have, for the most part,been quantitative (e.g., Borders & Fong, 1989; Fong et al.,1997; Lovell, 1999a; Neukrug & McAuliffe, 1993). Quanti-tative studies, despite their power in testing hypotheses, inMcLeod's (2001) words, "miss the subtleties of process thatshape [counseling] outcomes" (p. 190). The few extantqualitative studies have reported on skill development andpersonal change within a program (Hill, Charles, & Reed,1981; Ralph, 1980) or within the career span (Skovholt &Ronnestad, 1992), but they were predicated on chrono-logical variables and not on an assessment, a priori, ofparticipants' cognitive or epistemological levels.

We wished to complement the existing, mainly quantita-tive, research efforts on counselor cognitive development byproducing rich, text-based qualitative data. A reason fordoing qualitative research lies in its potential for applica-tion. Qualitative research should provide more accessible,or experience-near, descriptions of linkages between counse-lor characteristics (in this case personal epistemology) andcounseling interview behavior. Thus, educators might moreeasily integrate such research discoveries into their teaching.It is difficult to apply quantitative research findings easily indaily practice (Gelso, 1985; Howard, 1993; Polkinghorne,1992). By contrast, a major limitation of qualitative researchlies in problems with generalizability (Patton, 1990). As aconsequence of each method's limits and power, the purposesand strengths of the qualitative and quantitative methods existin tension with each other, with one more useful for generat-ing hypotheses and the other for testing them; the results ofthe current study are, therefore, more easily integrated intopractice than the results of a quantitative study but limitedin their generalizability.

Participants

So that we could determine their epistemological develop-ment, all of the counselor trainees (N= 30) in two sections ofthe first author's beginning course in counseling skills com-pleted the Learning Environment Preferences inventory

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(LEP; Moore, 1989) during the first session of that course,that is, before instruction began. Using the qualitative re-search technique of stratified purposeful sampling (Gall,Gall, & Borg, 2003; Miles & Huberman, 1994), we chose toconcentrate our inquiry on extreme cases, that is, on (a) 6trainees who had the highest LEP scores for dualism and (b)6 trainees who had the highest scores for relativism. Strati-fied purposeful sampling helps "develop insights into thecharacteristics of each type, as well as insights into the varia-tions that exist across types" (Gall et al., 2003, p. 179). Be-cause our theory-driven aim was to determine if there aredifferences in interview behaviors due to epistemology (du-alists vs. relativists), such selection of extreme cases prom-ised to "maximize opportunities" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990,p. 186) to elicit qualitative data regarding the variation ofinterest.

The 12 counselor trainees who participated in this studyranged in age from 24 to 48 years. The dualists' ages (M =28.00, SD = 5.10) did not differ significantly from the agesof the relativists (M = 28.67, SD = 9.50), t = 0.15, p - .88.Eleven participants were women and 1 was a man, a ratiothat is typical of master's-degree programs in counseling.Nine participants were White, and 3 were Black. Consentwas received from all participants.

Instrumentation

The LEP was used to identify the counselor trainees' prefer-ences regarding the four Perry positions (i.e., dualism, earlymultiplicity, late multiplicity, and relativism) that are nowconsidered most salient in adult epistemological develop-ment. The LEP measures epistemological development byasking the participant to rate her or his preference on each of65 items across five domains that are related to epistemol-ogy: (a) view of knowledge and course content, (b) role ofthe instructor, (c) role of the student and of peers in theclassroom, (d) the classroom atmosphere, and (e) the role ofevaluation. The items range from those indicating a strongreliance on external authority (dualism) to recognition ofthe creation of knowledge by human communities (relativ-ism). Participants rate each item from 1 (not at all signifi-cant) to 5 (very significant). The resulting raw scores arethen processed to produce four position preference scores,which determine a respondent's differential preference forthe four positions. Using the qualitative research techniqueof stratified purposeful sampling, we identified 12 extremecases by selecting the highest scoring participants, 6 each,on the respective LEP subscores for dualism and relativism.For dualists, knowledge is viewed as outside of oneself, andone's role in learning is seen as that of a receiver of knowl-edge from authorities. (At the intermediary multiplicity po-sitions, individuals retain an allegiance to the possibility offinding essential truth outside of human dialogue; however,they have doubts about finding such truth and consequentlythey experience frustration over the seeming arbitrariness of

the multiple perspectives available.) Upon arriving at theposition called relativism, individuals experience an episte-mological breakthrough. It involves "a radical re-perceptionof knowledge" (Perry, 1970, p. 109), in which persons recog-nize that humans work together to construct knowledge ratherthan relying solely on authorities for knowledge. They em-brace the human creation of meanings and the ongoing searchfor evidence.

Moore (1989) found the internal consistency alpha scoresof the LEP to range from .72 to .84 for each position acrossall five domains and test-retest reliability to run as high as.89. Both concurrent validity and construct validity of theLEP have been established (Moore, 1989). For example, theLEP showed a correlation of.36 with the Measure of Episte-mological Reasoning (Baxter-Magolda & Porterfield, 1985),a parallel measure of the Perry Scheme. Moore tested con-struct validity for the LEP by showing upward hierarchicalprogression in the four positions over time and with increas-ing education. He also found there to be strong correlationsbetween Perry positions and other related constructs.

The Counseling Skills Course

The counselor trainees who participated in this study hadcompleted the first half of a three-credit graduate course inwhich they were taught the microskills (Ivey & Ivey, 2003)approach to empathic listening before they conducted thespecific helping interviews that were the target of our study.By midcourse, which was when the research-targeted inter-views were completed, they had experienced the so-called"active listening" skills of nonverbal attending, paraphras-ing, reflection of feeling, and questioning. They had triedout these skills in various practice interview contexts, in-cluding both role-played ones and ones in which real prob-lems and issues were explored. The interviews we used forour qualitative analyses were of the latter kind (i.e., real-life,not role-played, interviews); for these interviews, traineesrecruited practice clients from class or from their home mi-lieus. The taped interviews, approximately 30 minutes inlength, were then transcribed; these transcriptions, alongwith the trainees' written self-commentaries, were subse-quently used for thematic analyses.

Data Collection and Analysis

The overall analytic process followed a generic qualitativeapproach, as described by McLeod (2001). Recent guide-lines (Choudhuri, Glauser, & Peregoy, 2004) from the Jour-nal of Counseling & Development for qualitative counsel-ing research helped in structuring the investigation. The spe-cific method consisted of inductive analysis (Patton, 1990),with code-to-theme protocols adapted from the groundedtheory method of Strauss and Corbin (1990) and fromSkovholt and Ronnestad's (1992) "modified 'constant com-parative"' (p. 153) process. In this vein, three researchers,one of whom was the first author of this article, analyzed the

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student interviews and commentaries and separately codedthem first into ideas (which were called "initial field notes");then into initial codes; then into subthemes; and, finally,into broader, more inclusive themes. The researchers achievedconsensus at each level. Data that did not fit into the themeswere noted and retained. The first author then assigned namesto the final themes that the researchers had culled and cre-ated definitions for each by reviewing the data. The firstauthor then compared the separate themes for dualists andrelativists and subsumed the pairs of themes into five over-all categories of counselor interview functioning. In orderto increase the trustworthiness of the possible discoveriesfrom this study, an adaptation of the consensual qualitativemethod (Hill, Thompson, & Nutt-Williams, 1997) was used.An advanced graduate student conducted an audit of thedata analysis and of the logic and evidence for the themesand provided a written report.

Possible Sources of Researcher Bias

The principal researcher (the first author), already "theorysensitive" at the time of the analysis, was familiar with therelationship between development and other attributes ofindividuals. This type of knowledge on the researcher's partis common in qualitative research and can actually be anasset at stages of the research (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) aslong as it is acknowledged and accounted for when appro-priate. The researchers controlled for this theory sensitivityby (a) not knowing either the identity of the trainees or theirPerry position at the time of the initial analysis, (b) havingtwo other researchers conduct independent initial analysesof interview transcripts, and (c) asking two additional re-searchers to cluster the initial notes into themes "blind," thatis, unaware of whether they were naming themes for dualistsor relativists.

EResultsThe three researchers identified five overall categories thatcharacterized most of these counselor trainees' interviewbehaviors, namely, source of point of view, depth, reflec-tiveness, relationship to ambiguity, and use of evidence. Foreach of these categories, they named two themes, one for

dualists and one for relativists (see Table 1); the first authorwas influenced by the literature on wisdom (e.g., Hanna &Ottens, 1995) in naming some of the themes. It should benoted that there were exceptions to these themes for eachgroup, although the exceptions were rare. Following are theresults in the form of (a) broad categories,of counselor inter-view behavior, (b) the specific themes and definitions thatwere named for dualists and relativists, and (c) representativeillustrations of those themes. For space reasons, the illustra-tions are limited to segments; these examples are, of course,part of longer segments that offer a fuller picture of the episte-mologies. Our comments on the examples are in brackets.

Category 1: Source of Point of View

Theme I for dualists: Conflating points of view/externality.Definition: Tendency to mix one's own point of view withthe client's or an external authority's point of view; inabilityto enter empathically another person's perspective. Thistheme is expressed in either (a) enmeshment in(overaccommodation to) client's point of view or (b) overuseof authority, or both.

Example of Theme I for dualists. Client: "I'm still angryabout my parents' divorce after all these years." Counselor:"It's OK to- feel anger [authority]. I'm angry about my par-ents' divorce still too" [own perspective].

Theme 1 for relativists: Empathic decenteredness. Defi-nition: Ability to,distinguish one's own point of view fromthe client's point of view and the point of view of others ingeneral; recognition that a counselor is always approximat-ing,.not receiving, another's experience.

Example of Theme I for relativists. Counselor (to clientwhb is weighing her own impulsive need to purchase a par-ticular house with her husband's deliberateness): "You'retrying to balance getting the first house you see ... but onthe other hand ... not put all your eggs in one basket....Your heart is set on this one, but you are worried about yourhusband's view, and you think his deliberateness might bewise." [Note that here the relativistic counselor "decenters"from the client's point of view-not being swept up in eitherher enthusiasm nor in the client's worry about her husband'ssatisfaction. Thus, the client is helped to hear her own "voice"as well as her husband's wants.]

BLE 1

Categories of Counselor Functioning and Separate Themes for Dualists and Relativists

Separate Themes for Dualists and Relativists

Category of Counselor Functioning Dualists Relativists

Source of point of view Conflating points of view/externality Empathic decenterednessDepth Superficiality PerspicacityReflectiveness Automatization MetacognitionRelationship to ambiguity Reductionism/premature closure Tolerance of ambiguityUse of evidence Unconsidered action Deliberated action

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Category 2: Depth

Theme 2for dualists: Superficiality. Definition: Orientationtoward the "surface" of client experience; focus on specificpersons, places, or things that the client has mentioned. Thereis an inability to probe for mixed feelings, implicit emo-tions or meanings, and/or patterns in client behavior.

Example of Theme 2for dualists. Client: "The reason Iam angry, I guess, is because I feel like the real truth wasn'ttold by my parents-they were sick of the marriage and itjust wasn't working out. I'm also worried that it could hap-pen to me." Counselor: "So you feel confused?" [missingthe key concerns in favor of a superficial acknowledgmentof mere confusion].

Theme 2for relativists: Perspicacity. Definition: "Seeingthrough"; flexible application of the ability to use concrete,momentary cues to uncover cross-situational client themes;characterized by subtlety and use of metaphor.

Example of Theme 2for relativists. Client: "My husbandis very supportive.... We just got married in July and then Iwent back to school in August... here he takes me on and heis paying all of my school bills and supporting me. There arethings out there that he wants ... a dirt bike and a boat."Counselor: "I sense some guilt [implicit feeling] about evengoing (to pursue a second master's degree) right now. Am Ioff?" Client: No you are not. I agree with that.

Category 3: Reflectiveness

Theme 3 for dualists: Automatization. Definition: Tendencytoward habitual, automatic modes of thought and action;inclination to emit decontextualized utterances; inabilityto give considered evidence for thought and action; roteapplication of skills without evidence from current data;conventionality.

Example of Theme 3 for dualists. Client, regarding histeenage daughter: "Great head on her shoulders, courteousto everybody. Just your typical kid, though, when it comesto stuff at home and how they deal with parents. SometimesI'd like to slap her around. High maintenance kid." Counse-lor: "Does she have problems at school?" [This is adecontextualized response with no rationale in the writtencommentary. Counselor is not responding in an intentionalfashion to key concerns. Similar closed questions are re-peated throughout interview.]

Theme 3 for relativists: Metacognition. Definition: In-terest in and ability to think about one's thinking, to probepersonal meanings and motivations; capacity to critiqueone's work and to consider alternate helping strategies.

Example of Theme 3for relativists. Counselor (to womanwho is uncertain about a love relationship): "So you've beengone for the last 6 weeks and did that give you a chance tothink about how things are going?" Written counselor com-mentary on this utterance: "A better response would havebeen to just repeat where we left off, 'He doesn't really want

a serious relationship,' and let her take it back up from there.I also think I was uncomfortable confronting her with herfear" [self-critique, recognition of alternatives, and reflec-tion on own perspective].

Category 4: Relationship to Ambiguity

Theme 4for dualists: Reductionism/premature closure. Defi-nition: Inclination to act in search of a single explanation;tendency to take only one perspective on human concerns,to seek a "right" answer to human problems.

Example of Theme 4for dualists. Client: "My brothers andsisters have gotten over my parents' divorce, but I can't." Coun-selor: "People who have this trouble are afraid of it happeningto them" [simplistic reduction to one universal cause withoutexploring the feelings and meanings related to, the issue]."You need to tell yourself that it doesn't have to happen toyou" [applies single approach to complex problem].

Theme 4for relativists: Tolerance for ambiguity. Defini-tion: Recognition that uncertainty is pervasive, that manyperspectives are possible, and that pausing to gather evi-dence is needed before one draws conclusions.

Example of Theme 4 for relativists. Counselor to clientwho is deliberating the conflictual consequences of choos-ing between a musical career and a potential marriage: "Yousaid 'scary.' Could you describe it to me, what you mean by'scary?"' [interested in exploring client meanings]. After theclient responded, the counselor said, "A year or two ago, youwould have dropped everything for the music. Now you'vegot this new relationship and it's throwing a cog into theworks" [stays* with the uncertainty; holds the dilemma outfor client to examine].

Category 5: Use of Evidence

Theme 5for dualists: Unconsidered action. Definition: Dis-inclination to explore possibilities in favor of acting with-out considered evidence for actions.

Example of Theme 5 for dualists. Counselor (to Womanwhose husband has taken a job in a location that is far fromtheir home, necessitating his having a separate weekdayapartment): "Well, what does he want you to do?" The firstquestion was followed by "Who else have you talked to?""Well, um, have you considered moving up there?" "Whatwould make you feel better?" "How would you feel if he...came home? Is that an option?" and "Have you consideredjust... giving it a trial run?" [interrogation illustrates pre-mature drive toward solution].

Theme 5 for relativists: Deliberated action. Definition:Interest in and ability to act based on weighing of evidence,ability to name reasons for intervention, ability to offer evi-dence for actions and views.

Example of Theme 5for relativists. (The following clientseems to have reached temporary peace about pursuing amusic career despite complications for his primary relation-

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ship, but the counselor intentionally opens up new territoryfor exploration.) Counselor: "But you've said that yourfiancee doesn't know if she could handle it if you got thatbreak." (Client then proceeds to weigh his fianc6e's travel-ing with him versus his being on extended absences.) Coun-selor commentary: "I thought that he seemed too pat withhis solution, so I brought in a previous comment that chal-lenged him to look at the realism of his plan." [Here thecounselor has a rationale and a conception of the client'sconflicting needs. Client can now pause to weigh conflict-ing needs and anticipate conflict in the relationship.]

WDiscussionThe distinctions between dualists' and relativists' counsel-ing behaviors in this study are consistent with general no-tions from adult developmental theory. In addition, beyondsuch general connections, we have found linkages betweendevelopmental epistemology and effective counseling be-havior. In that vein, we have tentatively made practical sug-gestions for the developmental teaching of counseling.

Parallels to Cognitive Development

All five of the counseling-related themes are consistent withthe global characteristics named by Perry (1970), and laterby Belenky et al. (1986), for dualism.

Dualistic counselors. Trainees who scored high on dual-ism in this study showed a tendency toward a convention-maintaining, unquestioning belief that there were single truthsknown by authorities. For example, in Category 1, source ofpoint of view, dualists' conflating points of view and external-ity (Theme 1) in the counseling interview were consistent withtheir general tendency to receive knowledge passively fromauthorities. In both Perry's overall theory and in the case ofthese trainees, a dualist cannot establish an autonomous pointof view and instead relies on others in the form of people andtexts for his or her point of view. In the area of depth (Category 2),dualists' superficiality in the interviews (Theme 2) was con-sistent with Perry's description of dualists' general beliefs inconcrete, absolute, obvious truths. Such attention to the sur-face militates against the dualistic counselor's ability to probefor exceptions and underlying dimensions of phenomena. Inthe area of reflectiveness (Category 3), the general dualisticreliance on extemal convention for action was demonstrated indualistic counselors'Theme 3, automatization. They could onlyreplicate the "skills" that they have been taught (by the au-thorities) in a mechanical manner. Fourth, in the area of rela-tionship to ambiguity (Category 4), dualistic trainees' reduc-tionism/premature closure was consistent with their belief in"one right answer," in that exploration of alternate possibili-ties is not seen as fruitful. Finally, in Category 5, use of evi-dence, dualistic participants' unconsidered action in the in-terviews expressed the overall nondeliberative, even impul-sive, manner in which dualists take action, because authority

can dictate the "right" solution and they had no inclinationto search for multiple perspectives and evidence.

Relativistic counselors. In similar fashion, the relativistthemes for the counselors also corresponded to Perry's (1970)overall positions. For example, Perry described the relativist'scapacity for a kind of detachment grounded in an awarenessof the tentative nature of assumptions behind judgmentsand of the temporary context of any declaration. Empathicdecenteredness (in Category 1, source of point of view) par-tially represented an ability to detach from one's own pointof view while being simultaneously attentive to another'spoint of view. Relativistic trainees' depth, which we identi-fied as perspicacity, was also characteristic of relativism ingeneral. In Belenky et al.'s (1986) words, for relativists, "Truthlies hidden beneath the surface" (p. 94), requiring one to"really look" and "look hard" (p. 94) for understanding. Thethird characteristic of these relativistic trainees,metacognition, corresponded to Perry's capacity for detach-ment, the ability to "stand back" (p. 140). In his originalstudy, Perry quoted a representative relativist, who simplydeclared, "I'm more aware of what I'm doing" (p. 141). Ac-cording to Belenky et al., that awareness allows the relativistto consider his or her assumptions, to have a critical innervoice. The fourth category that emerged from this study, rela-tionship to ambiguity, evokes a hallmark of relativistic think-ing. In Perry's words, relativists appreciate the "plurality ofcontexts" (p. 140) for all judgments, a plurality that is theshifting ground for knowing. Their recognition of complexitybrought with it patience in the form of the ability to "wait formeanings to emerge" (Belenky et al., 1986, p. 98), that is, atolerance for ambiguity instead of the dualistic impatiencefor structure. Finally, in the fifth category, use of evidence,relativists expressed what Perry called the balance between"contemplative awareness and action" (p. 178). We character-ized relativistic trainees as being able to take deliberateaction, or, in Perry's words, to "act in an examined ... life"(p. 151). Relativists generally applied reasoned reflectionbefore taking action in a world of many contexts.

These parallels suggest that the counselor trainees in thisstudy were making counseling decisions from a broad epis-temological framework, either that of general dualism orrelativism. We have concluded that this framework, that is,personal epistemology, is itself a cogent factor in counselortrainees' counseling decisions.

Parallels to the Literature on CounselingEffectiveness

A number of the relativists' behaviors were related to thebehaviors that are required for effectiveness as a counselor.In Wampold's (2001) extensive review of the counseling ef-fectiveness literature, he named a number of key charac-teristics of effective counseling. Wampold's first characteristicwas empathy, which is the first theme found in this study.In addition, Wampold, identifying the importance of "work-

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ing through one's own issues" and "being self-reflectiveabout one's work" (p. 230), seems to draw on Theme 3, thatis, the relativists' metacognitive abilities t6:step back frompersonal meanings and motivations. Finally, Wampold'sspecifying of "understanding and conceptualizing inter-personal and intrapsychic dynamics" (p. 230) as a key fac-tor in counselor effectiveness echoes the relativists' perspi-cacity, as seen in their ability to note the subtle dies that wentbeyond the overt content expressed by clients.

Thus, three of the five characteristics seen in relativists'interviews have a strong relationship to:.those found byWampold (200 1) to be critical for effective counseling. It isat least these three (i.e., empathic decenteredness, perspi-cacity, and metacognition) that might, therefore, be moreconfidently targeted in developmentally oriented counse-lor education.-

Implications for Teaching and Supervision Practice

These parallels between the discoveries of this study andprevious meta-analyses of counseling effectiveness (e.g.,Wampold, 2001) support a shift toward "deveotbinentalizing"aspects of counselor preparation. It should be noted, again,that the exploratory, qualitative nature of this current studydoes not offer external validity and therefore necessarilylimits the generalizations that can be made regarding theoverall training of counselors. Mindful of that proviso, wenevertheless propose interventions that might be consid-ered to encouragp dualists to shift their fundamental ways ofknowing. The impact of such interventions should be stud-ied in future research.

The focus here on intervening with dualists rather thanon relativists is founded on our initial research interest inthose students' difficulties in learning counseling skills andon what we see as the ethical imperative to help dualistsshift away from externality, superficiality, automatization,reductionism, and unconsidered action in their counselingwork. These inclinations can do harm tb"'clients-or at leastfail to promote good. Further research 'will be needed toconfirm such discoveries.

Developmental instruction. There is strong evidence thatintentional developmental education has a powerful impact(Sprinthall, 1994). The broad aim of developmental instruc-tion is to expand students' cognitive frame4,'6rks for know-ing. From this perspective, epistemology, or,how a personcomes to know, is a central target of education.Developmentalists propose that expanding students' avail-able cognitive frameworks will increase their capacitiesacross a variety of content areas (Knefelkamp, 1974;Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972). Developmental thinkers recom-mend three general pedagogical strategies. First, readiness,in the form of epistemological assessment (e.g., of dualism),should be determined early in a program or class. Second,intentionally develppmental interventions should be imple-mented, following guidelines laid out by several counseling

curriculum theorists (Cebik, 1985; Granello & Hazler, 1998;Lovell & McAuliffe, 1997; McAuliffe & Eriksen, 2000; Pais-ley & Benshoff, 1998). Third, developmental and effective-ness gains should be evaluated.

Encouraging movement from dualism toward relativism.Given the findings of the current study, we propose that aninitial effort be made to assist dualistic students to expandtheir epistemological perspectives. Of course, these explor-atory findings must be confirmed and extended before suchchanges in counselor education are confidently imple-mented. Instructors might first attempt to encourage dualis-tic students to expand their ways of knowing in the fivecategories that were identified in the interviews: source ofpoint of view, depth, reflectiveness, tolerance for ambiguity,and use of evidence. For dualistic trainees, acquiring char-acteristics of the relativists is a desirable outcome. Thus, wepropose that educators aim to help dualistic trainees be-come more empathic and decentered, perspicacious,metacognitive, tolerant of ambiguity, and deliberative intheir actions.

A general guide for instigating developmental change indualists has been offered by Cooper and Lewis (1983). Theirnotions can be summarized through the following four points:

"* Put students into encounters with diversity."* Require them to take on alternative perspectives (e.g.,

to think from different theoretical points of view)."* Convey the contextual roots of various counseling

perspectives, including originators' biographies andhistorical, political, and ethnic contexts.

"* Have them question the assumptions on which theyoperate.

Each of these guidelines challenges dualists to recon-sider their implicit.belief that truth lies outside of social andhistorical circumstances (Rorty, 1989). We have extendedthese general notions with the specific instructional sug-gestions that follow.

Examples 6f development-stimulating instruction for du-alists. Kegan (1982), ,Knefelkamp (1974), and Sprinthall(1994), among others, have laid out guidelines for develop-ment-enhancing educational environments. Each emphasizedthe dual notions of support and challenge (Sanford, 1962) asnecessary conditions for positive developmental change. Eachhas shown that both support of a current epistemology andchallenge to that way of thinking are necessary for growth.Knefelkamp proposed that four pedagogical dimensions(namely, degree of structure, personalism, concreteness, andexperience) be varied, depending on students' developmen-tal needs. For example, dualists benefit from greater structurein classroom directions, assignments, and topic sequencing.Similarly, 'although all learners benefit from direct experi-ence, dualists' have a greater need for illustrations and actionin order to make sense of theory. In Table 2, examples of sup-

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TABLE 2

Suggested Supportive Instructional Interventionsfor Dualistic Trainees

Supportive InstructionalDualists' Interview Theme Interventions

Conflating points of view/ Recognize a student's interestexternality in others' welfare and praise

that concern.Superficiality Give concrete illustrations and

"rules" for use of skills.Automatization Provide clear guidelines for

typical situations in whichcertain skills might be applied(e.g., for crisis work).

Reductionism/premature Honor the need for quickclosure decisions under certain

circumstances.Unconsidered action Recognize the ultimate value

of action in personal change.

portive interventions for dualistic trainees (i.e., those thatmatch the dualists' current capacities) are suggested by theme.Corresponding interventions that might challenge the dual-istic trainee (i.e., catalyzing disequilibration and instigatingan epistemological shift) are illustrated in Table 3. Many spe-cific development-enhancing counselor training methodshave been described by the first author and Eriksen (Eriksen& McAuliffe, 2001; McAuliffe & Eriksen, 2000, 2002).

ELimitationsQualitative researchers must be especially alert to issues ofexternal validity (Patton, 1990). In that regard, it should berecognized that the results of this study cannot be general-ized beyond the 12 trainees who participated. Nevertheless,these findings are intriguing, because they parallel quanti-tative research findings on the relationship between episte-mology and counselor characteristics (e.g., Benack, 1988;Lovell, 1999a; Neukrug & McAuliffe, 1993). We hope thatthese findings will encourage future attempts at develop-mental counselor education. A quantitative investigation ofthe relationship between trainee epistemology and counse-lor interview behavior, perhaps as measured by an "objec-tive" measure of such behavior (e.g., -Downing, Smaby, &Maddux, 1999; Myrick & Kelly, 1971), seems warranted.

Another limitation of this study is that not all trainees'behaviors in the interviews fell neatly into the dualistic andrelativistic themes. For example, sometimes dualists didmake effective reflective responses, albeit mostly concreteand obvious ones. In a similar fashion, dualists occasionallyseemed to demonstrate a kind of perspicacity via insightsinto nonobvious aspects of clients' worlds. In the six inter-views of the dualists, however, there were only 5 initial fieldnotes, out of a total of approximately 150, that representedsuch "advanced" themes, and 2 of the dualistic trainees, outof 6, actually accounted for all 5 of those field notes. In

Suggested Challenging InstructionalInterventions for Dualistic Trainees

Challenging InstructionalDualists' Interview Theme Interventions

From conflating points of view/ * Demonstrate reflectiveexternality toward empathic listening.decenteredness * Direct students to practice

taking the points of view oftheir clients.

* Present students with dilem-mas in which they musthonor moral positions thatare different from their own.

From superficiality toward * Help students to know andperspicacity honor their "hunches" (which

requires recognition ofnonobvious factors thatmust be probed before "de-livering" an intervention)about client.

- Teach basic psychody-namic notions of defense/coping mechanisms.

From automatization toward * Demonstrate situational dif-metacognition ferences in the application

of interventions.- Have students engage in

self-exploration about cul-ture, family, and personalissues, for example, throughreflective journaling (e.g.,Griffith & Frieden, 2000).

From reductionism/premature • Require and demonstrate anclosure toward tolerance for extended exploration/ambiguity information-gathering phase

in interviews through the useof empathic listening.

- Demonstrate the emer-gence of new issues whenexploration occurs.

From unconsidered action to • Require evidence fordeliberated action choices, for example, in

ongoing commentaries intyped interview transcripts.

parallel fashion, some of the relativistic counselors also ex-hibited occasional dualistic-type behaviors.

EFuture ResearchSome of the following would extend and deepen the currentresearch. First, dualists' longitudinal progress from the mid-term to the final interviews of the course might be plotted.In that way, as Lovell (1 999b) has proposed, researchers mightnote any movement toward relativism that could be due tofurther learning from the counseling skills course. Second,researchers might study those students whose epistemolo-gies lie between the two extremes of dualism and relativism.The midway positions in the Perry Scheme, called early mul-tiplicity and late multiplicity (Moore, 1989), actually charac-terize the majority of graduate counseling students (Lovell,

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1999a; Neukrug & McAuliffe, 1993). A third area for futureresearch is that of longitudinal change during a whole pro-gram of study. Findings in this area have so far been mixed(e.g., Fong et al., 1997). A fourth potentially important re-search direction lies in studying other possible characteris-tics that might distinguish dualists and relativists, such asmulticultural awareness, approaches to diagnostic labeling,and the ability to handle clashes of values with clients.

Finally, studies of developmental interventions are calledfor at this time. Fong et al. (1997) proposed that researchersstudy intentional developmental counseling instruction. Forexample, a developmentally intentional counseling skillscourse (e.g., Eriksen & McAuliffe, 2001; Granello & Hazler,1998; Griffith & Frieden, 2000) might be experimentallycompared with a traditional course. The developmentalcourse might intentionally aim at instigating dualists to changein the direction of increased empathic decenteredness,perspicacity, metacognition, tolerance for ambiguity, anddeliberated action.

WConclusionRogers's (195 1) original finding that the personal character-istics of the counselor are crucial for positive client changecontinues to gain support in the literature (Wampold, 2001).We chose to explore the epistemological characteristics ofcounselor trainees in this study because we have observedthat some counseling students have difficulty learning thecomplex skills and sensitivities that are required for thework. The five themes that we observed for dualists and relativ-ists offer a beginning map for a new epistemological-developmental counselor education, because instructorsmight target each of those five areas for learning. The de-velopmental dimension adds a vocabulary and set of ex-pectations to traditional approaches to counselor educa-tion; thus, a learner-centered and experience-oriented peda-gogy might be planned and evaluated on the developmen-tal continuum.

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