Forming clinical impressions during the first five minutes of the counseling interview

Dong Yul Lee, Azy Barak, Max R. Uhlemann

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

The influence of earlier formed clinical impressions of the client on later judgments within a counseling session were examined. It was predicted that redundancy in judgments of counselors' clinical impressions of the client after 5 min. and after 30 min. of an interview would be greater for counselor-trainees who are (a) more self-confident about their judgments and (b) lower in cognitive complexity, than other counselor-trainees. A stimulus tape in which a male counselor conducted an initial 30-min. interview with a depressed female client was shown to 80 counselor-trainees. At the 5- and 30-min. marks, the tape was stopped, and the counselor-trainees indicated their clinical impressions of the client. These impressions included written thoughts and ratings of clinical characteristics of the client. Analyses showed that both their self-confidence and cognitive complexity were not associated with differences in redundant judgments.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)835-844
Number of pages10
JournalPsychological Reports
Volume85
Issue number3 PART 1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1999

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Psychology

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