THE EFFECTS OF COUNSELOR RACE AND TRAINING UPON COUNSELING PROCESS WITH NEGRO CLIENTS I N INITIAL

INTERVIEWS GEORGE BANKS, BERNARD 0. BERENSON AND ROBERT R. CARKHUFF

University of Massachusetts

PROBLEM The retarding effects of counselor race upon the responses of Negroes have

been hypothesized in the areas of counseling and psychotherapy(6, ’), test-exam- ination(aB 6, and education(*). This study attempted to determine the effects upon eight Negroes in initial clinical interviews of an inexperienced Negro counselor and three white counselors of varying degrees of experience and types of training.

METHOD Four counselors were involved : Counselor A, an inexperienced 20-year old

Negro senior undergraduate student who had taken only an undergraduate course in “Counseling Theory and Practice” oriented toward counseling as a communi- cation process between two parties to a relationship(2); Counselor B, a relatively inexperienced 25-year old white second-year graduate student who had previously seen several clients in a counseling psychology program oriented in the same manner; Counselor C, a relatively experienced, 25-year old white third-year graduate student in a separate guidance counselor education program of a differing orientation who had had a year of experience in guidance activities but who also had taken the same undergraduate course as the Negro counselor; and Counselor D, a 32-year old white Ph.D. with eight years’ experience from a nationally prominent program with a traditional trait-and-factor counseling system not oriented toward counselor- client differences. The three white counselors were selected by two experienced clinicians to match the personal attractiveness, intelligence, politeness, quietness, and apparent sincerity of the Negro counselor. The Negro counselees included four male and four female undergraduate students at the University of Massa- chusetts.

In a counterbalanced design, during consecutive weeks, each counselee saw each counselor for an initial clinical interview. Each counselee was given the following instructions: “All of us, in the present or during the past year or so, have had a number of experiences or problems which have been difficult for us. If you feel that the person you will be seeing is helpful, please feel free to discuss these experiences.” Most of the problems discussed involved the difficulties in making an adjustment in the educational setting. The counselors were instructed to be aa helpful aa they could with the counselees. The interviews were recorded, and following each interview the counselees filled out inventories on each counselor and following all interviews answered questions concerning all of the counselors.

Random excerpts were taken from the tapes and rated by trained raters on five 5-point scales (4) assessing the following dimensions of interpersonal functioning which have been related to constructive client changes in counseling and psycho- therapy: Counselor empathy (E) ; counselor respect ( R ) ; counselor genuineness (G) ; counselor concreteness or specificity of expression (C) ; client depth of self-explor- ation (Ex) (4). E ranges from level 1, where the counselor is unaware or ignorant of even the most conspicuous surface feelings of the counselee to level 6, where the counselor communicates an accurate empathic understanding of the counselee’s deepest feelings. R ranges from the counselor’s clear demonstration of negative regard to his communication of a deep caring for the counselee. G vanes from the communication of a wide discrepancy between the counselor’s experiencing and his verbalizations to his being freely and deeply himself in a non-exploitive re- lationship. C ranges from vague and abstract discussions to direct discussion of

THE EFFECTS OF COUNSELOR RACE AND TRAINING 71

specific feelings and experiences. Ex ranges from the lowest level, where the coun- selee does not explore himself at all, to the highest level, where he is searching to discover new feelings concerning himself and his world. The Pearson r rate-rerate reliabilities for the two raters involved were as follows: El .99, .96; R , .94, .99; G, .96, .93; C , .93, .99; Ex, .79, .99. The intercorrelations between the raters were as follows: El 3 3 ; R , .95; G, 3 9 ; C , .72; Ex, .74.

In addition, a 50-item relationship inventory ( l ) assessing the counselor’s level of functioning and incorporating ten items, half negatively phrased, on each of these dimensions involved was administered to the counselees. Each item had a 6-point scale ranging from “(1) Yes, I feel that i t is true” to “(6) No, I feel strongly that it is not true.” Finally, following all interviews, the counselees were asked the following questions: (1) Concerning each individual counselor, would you be willing to see him again in counseling? (2) In what order of counseling effectiveness would you rank the counselors involved?

RESULTS Tape-ratings of Conditions. There were no significant differences between the

levels of the individual facilitative conditions offered by the three counselors with varying degrees of relationship-oriented training (counselors A, B and C) . However, all relationship-trained counselors provided significantly higher levels of all facili- tative conditions than the traditionally trained counselor (counselor D). Only the differences between counselor C and counselor D on C and Ex did not attain statistical significance at the .05 level. Summarizing the conditions, the counselors ranked in the following manner and with the following overall average : (1) counselor B, 2.28; (2) A, 2.08; (3) C, 1.95; (4) D, 1.61.

Counselee Inventory Assessments of Conditions. Again, on the counselor con- ditions summed overall, counselors A and B did not differ significantly from each other, and neither differed from counselor C. However, counselors A and C were assessed as functioning at significantly higher levels than counselor D, while coun- selor B barely missed significant differences when compared to counselor D. The following rank-ordering and average inventory assessments of counselors prevailed : (1) A, 4.35; (2) C, 4.32; (3) B, 4.21; (4) D, 3.95.

Counselee Return. All eight Negro counselees indicated that they would return to see the Negro counselor (A) again. Five counselees said that they would return to see counselor B and three indicated they would return to see counselor C. None of the eight would return to see counselor D.

Counselee Rank-ordering of Counselors. The counselees’ average rank-ordering of the counselors is as follows: (1) B, 1.37; (2) A, 1.88; (3) C, 2.63; (4) D, 4.00.

DISCUSSION Overall, the following trends are noteworthy. At one extreme, the relatively

inexperienced Negro (A) and the relatively inexperienced counselor (B) with training in a program oriented toward attending to differences between counselor and counselee functioned at the highest levels. At the other extreme, the experi- enced and traditionally-trained counselor (D) functioned at the lowest level. The relatively experienced counselor (C) fell in between. The evidence thus suggests that counselor experience per se may be independent of counseling effectiveness with Negro counselees. I n fact, the most experienced counselor, a respected member of his profession, whose training and orientation did not emphasize attending to important differences between counselor and client in counseling proved the least effective. Race and type of orientation and training appear more relevant variables.

It is significant that the Negro counselee inventory trends were not as pro- nounced as the objective tape ratings. Follow-up questioning indicated that the counselees uniformly gave the benefit of the doubt to the “white man”. I n other

72 GEORGE BANKS, BERNARD G. BERENSON AND ROBERT R. CARKHUFF

words, under the conditions of the research, there was a regression of counselee assessments toward a more socially acceptable mean, a finding which has impli- cations for testing Negroes in studies of Negro-white interactions.

Perhaps most important, all Negro counselees indicated that they would return to see the Negro counselor, while none indicated that they would see the traditional counselor. Further, if the data on the Negro counselor were not consid- ered, 16 of 24 or two-thirds of the counselees would not return to see a white counselor for a second session. In addition, even the most facilitative white counselor was rejected by three counselees, thus suggesting a possible “hard core” of Negroes who would reject all white counselors.

It is noteworthy that the counselees all ranked the traditionally-trained and experienced counselor (D) last. However, five of the Negro counselees ranked the relationship-trained counselor (B) first. All of the three Negro counselees who indicated that they would not return to see counselor (B) ranked him second overall, or first among the white counselors. Thus, if the Negroes would be willing to see a white counselor, they would see the counselor with the most training in attending to the conditions of the relationship.

SUMMARY In a counterbalanced design, an inexperienced Negro and three white coun-

selors of varying degrees of experience saw eight Negro counselees and were assessed on the dimensions of counselor empathy, positive regard, genuineness, concreteness and client depth of self-exploration by tape-ratings and inventories filled out by the counselees. The Negro counselor and the two inexperienced white counselors, all trained to attend to the conditions of the counseling relationship, functioned significantly higher than the experienced white Ph.D. trained in a traditional trait-and-factor orientation. All of the Negro counselees indicated that they would return to see the Negro counselor, and none indicated that they would return to see the experienced white Ph.D. On all of the rank-orderings by the counselees, the experienced white Ph.D. was ranked last.

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