An empirical investigation of the Rogerian counselling conditions and locus of control.

Abstract

Carl Rogers postulated that certain necessary and sufficient conditions for personality change are congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy. He predicted that personality change would occur in clients who perceive the counselling conditions in a therapeutic relationship. Julian Rotter, in his theory, contends that an individual's belief in locus of control is an important variable in the study of personality. Rogers indicates that the individual with a healthy personality would tend to be internal in his locus of control, while the individual without a healthy personality tends to be external in his locus of control. He asserts that clients must perceive the congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy of the counsellor prior to positive personality change taking place. It was therefore hypothesized that there would be a difference in the locus of control change scores of the group of clients who perceive their counsellors as possessing counselling conditions and the group of clients who perceive their counsellors as not possessing the counselling conditions. Subjects for the study were self referred clients who sought personal adjustment counselling from school counsellors who volunteered to participate in the study. The Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (Form OS-M-64) was used to determine the client's perception of the counselling conditions. The difference between the Social Reaction Inventory pre-test and post-test scores was used to indicate changes in locus of control over the twelve week experimental period. The hypothesis was not supported. Various explanations for the results are suggested. Recommendations for further study include replication of the study in a clinical setting and a study over a longer counselling period with greater numbers of counsellors and clients.