COUNSELORS RESPONSIBILITY AND ETIOLOGY ATTRIBUTIONS, THEORETICAL ORIENTATIONS, AND COUNSELING STRATEGIES

Psychologists at university counseling centers with internships approv ed by the American Psychological Association were surveyed to examine relationships between their theoretical orientations, counseling strat egy recommendations, etiology attributions, and models of helping. Par ticipants responded to 2 vignettes, one portraying a student with an a djustment disorder and the other portraying a student with an identity disorder. The majority of participants subscribed to the compensatory model of helping for the adjustment disorder, but participants were m ore evenly divided between the compensatory and moral models of helpin g for the identity disorder. Most participants attributed the cause of the adjustment disorder to specific trauma and the cause of the ident ity disorder to lack of self-understanding. Evidence that etiology att ributions are more predictive of recommended counseling strategy than is theoretical orientation was found.