Interpersonal behaviour in counseling: Client and counselor expectations and experiences related to their evaluation of session

Expectations and experiences of the interpersonal behaviour between the counselor and the client were investigated in an exploratory study, and related to the evaluation of career counseling sessions with adolescents in a secondary school context in Sweden. The relationship was measured by using the Structural Analysis of Social Behaviour model (SASB). In general, positive evaluation as judged by the clients' was found to be related to the clients having more positive expectations and experience of their own and counselors' affiliative behaviour. No positive associations between own expected and experienced behaviour and evaluation were found as judged by the counselors. Affiliative behaviour was found to be the most important dimension in predicting evaluation of sessions in a positive way for the clients. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.