The Social Influence Model in Counseling and Psychotherapy

Abstract

Having examined the processes involved in clinical judgment and diagnosis, we are now ready to turn our attention to the process of therapy itself. During the 1960s, several writers began to examine the process of counseling and psychotherapy from social psychological perspectives. Although differing in emphasis, these analyses shared two central assumptions: that therapy and counseling involve interpersonal processes in which the therapist influences the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of the client, and that therapeutic change can be understood only within the context of the interpersonal dynamics of the counseling setting (Frank, 1961; Goldstein, 1966; Goldstein, Heller, & Sechrest, 1966; Strong, 1968). In fact, Strong (1968, p. 101) went so far as to suggest that “psychotherapy can be viewed as a branch of applied social psychology.”