Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
61863249
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
Caputo, Arcangelo,1968-
Title
Clients' perceptions of resistance in counselling.
Degree
Ph. D. -- University of Alberta, 2004
Publisher
Ottawa : Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, [2005]
Description
2 microfiches.
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
Resistance is a complex construct and a challenging phenomenon of the counselling process. While recognized by counsellors as a potential obstacle to the process and outcome of counselling, resistance from the client's perspective is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to examine and understand how active counselling clients perceive and process in-session resistance and to develop a process model of resistance using grounded theory methodology that would be useful to practitioners. A total of 37 one-hour, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants over the course of counselling and analyzed according to the constant comparative method. Meaning units were compared with each other to generate broad, descriptive categories of resistance, followed by comparisons of categories within and between each other to yield a substantive theory of resistance. The core category of the emergent process model conceptualizes resistance as a form of Psychological Self-Protection that is engaged when a threat to self-identity or self-autonomy is perceived. Protecting self-identity speaks to the clients' need to safeguard the construction of self that brings meaning, stability, and understanding to their world. Protecting self-autonomy relates to the individual's need for ownership, control, and a self-directing existence within the process of counselling. The need for Psychological Self-Protection originates from unmet client expectations of counselling, client fears about the counselling process, and client disagreements with counsellor behaviours. In response to this need, various resistant behaviours become manifested. Accompanying the process is the affective experience of anxiety, frustration, or ambivalence that tends to remain outside of the client's immediate awareness until reflected upon. Fundamental to addressing and resolving perceived threats to the psychological self is a mutual respect for the resistance experience, and a processing of the client-counsellor relationship in an effort to clarify preferred communication and working styles. Overall, resistance emerged as a healthy, adaptive, multidimensional phenomenon that attempts to meet the client's needs for safety and security when threats to self-identity and self-autonomy are perceived. By slowing the client's immediate counselling process to allow for reflection, Psychological Self-Protection fostered an increased sense of control within the familiarity of the self-construct.
ISBN
0612962490
9780612962491