The relationship between counselor verbal response modes and the working alliance in career counseling

The authors examined the use of counselor response modes in career counseling-including the overall proportion of each response mode and the relationship of each response mode to the working alliance. Participants were 19 counselors-in-training and 26 clients in 78 sessions, making this the largest reported study of career counselor response modes. Seventy-nine percent of the counselor responses were information, paraphrase, or close-ended questions. None of the categorized counselor responses was significantly and positively related to the working alliance, although counselor self-disclosure had a significant negative correlation with the alliance. The type of self-disclosure used was largely irrelevant or self-deprecating.