SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGY AND COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY - THE HISTORY, PRODUCTS, AND PROMISE OF AN INTERFACE

For 3 decades, counseling psychologists have drawn ideas from social psychology about the social process of counseling, integrated the ideas into counseling theories, and assessed them in research. This article traces the history of this interface, examines its products, and projects its future. Three propositions have guided and have been supported by much of the research: (a) Successful counseling relationships generate psychological convergence between counselor and client through a systematic developmental process; (b) ideas counselors introduce that are discrepant from clients' understandings stimulate change; and (c) clients' responsiveness to counselors is a function of their dependence on the counselors. These social influence dynamics underlie the processes and outcomes of counseling relationships regardless of the clinical theory that guides the counselors' work.