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A qualitative analysis was performed of the change process experienced by 10 female clients engaged in short-term counseling (8-11 sessions). At the end of each session, clients completed the Important Events Questionnaire in which they described the most important event in the session, the reason for its importance, their thoughts during the event, their thoughts between sessions, and any change they were experiencing. These written responses were examined by 4 judges who attempted to map change processes over time. Three different patterns of change were identified: consistent change, interrupted change, and minimal change. The implications of these results for the understanding of change processes in short-term counseling are explored.

Session evaluation and type of participant-recalled important event were investigated in 25 novice counselor dyads and 9 experienced counselor dyads during 9 sessions of short-term counseling. Counselor experience was the independent variable and session evaluation was the dependent variable. Results based on the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (Stiles, 1980) showed a significant interaction effect between counselor experience and role of participant (client or counselor) for session depth. Clients also reported an increase in positive affect over the course of counseling. Experienced counselors recalled more important events involving insight, whereas novice counselors recalled more important events involving exploration of feelings or self-critique. The type of important event recalled by clients also changed over the sessions of counseling.

Relationships among participants' assessments of the working alliance, effectiveness of counseling sessions, and memories for important therapeutic events were investigated in 10 counseling dyads. Results indicated that counselors exhibited greater specificity of recall of important events for sessions rated as more effective and showed greater specificity of recall than did clients. Counselors evidenced a statistically reliable increase in the bond aspect (quality of counselor-client relationship) of the working alliance over time, but there was no relationship between specificity of recall and the working alliance. Implications of these results for therapeutic work are discussed.

We examined the conceptualizations of 23 (11 experienced and 12 novice) counselors, with respect to general counseling process and specific client concerns by means of a two-part conceptual mapping task (CMT). Analyses of the CMT data revealed an interaction effect of counselor experience and generality of conceptual task on the extensiveness of counselor conceptualizations. Experienced counselors displayed slightly more extensive conceptualizations on the general CMT and less extensive conceptualizations on the specific CMT. This interaction effect was interpreted as evidence that experienced counselors possess extensive abstract, general knowledge of counseling that they use to conceptualize specific instances of counseling efficiently and parsimoniously. On the other hand, novice counselors, who lack such abstracted knowledge, engage in more extensive, unique conceptual work for each separate client.