Access Type

Open Access Dissertation

Date of Award

January 2015

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Counselor Education

First Advisor

George P. Parris

Abstract

Because of the prevalence of potentially traumatic events, counselors-in-training may have to assist individuals in crisis, as early as the internship phase of their counseling program. However, counselors-in-training receive minimal training in crisis intervention, which may be deleterious to the counselor as well as the client. Similarly, counselors-in-training receive minimal training on resilience building, a key component of crisis intervention. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a crisis intervention and resilience building training program, grounded in REBT, for counselors-in-training.

This study used a quasi-experimental, switching replications design consisting of two groups and three waves of measurement. The participants (N=37) for this study which included 16 participants in the treatment group and 21 participants in the control/delayed intervention group were pretested using a demographic survey, the Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and the Crisis Counseling Intervention Skills Self-Efficacy Scale (CCIS-SES). The treatment group then participated in a two-week training which entailed crisis intervention fundamentals and strategies as well as resilience-building. At the conclusion of the training, both the treatment group and the control group completed posttests of the CD-RISC and the CCIS-SES. The treatment group and the control group then “switched” roles and the control/delayed intervention group participated in the training. Afterwards, both groups again completed posttests.

Results from the t-tests for independents samples and dependent samples indicated that the crisis intervention and resilience building training did significantly increase the crisis counseling self-efficacy between the treatment and delayed intervention groups at Time 2 (t (28.52) = 5.93, p < .001), as well as within these respective groups at Time 1 to 2 and Time 1 to 3 for the experimental group (t (15) = 6.69, p < .001 and t (15) = 7.14, p < .001) and Time 2 to 3 and Time 1 to 3 for the delayed intervention group (t (20) = 7.83, p < .001 and t (20) = 6.73, p < .001). Results also indicated that there was a significant difference in resilience within the experimental and delayed intervention groups at Time 1 to 3 (t (15) = 3.50, p = .003, t (20) = 4.06, p = .001). However, there was not a significant difference in resilience between the delayed intervention group and the treatment group at any point. The small sample size, the length of the study, as well as other limitations may have affected the study. Thus, future research that includes a larger sample size as well as that which extends over a longer period of time, are amongst the recommendations offered.

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