The two provided articles, while both dealing with confrontation, are enormously different in scope. Lonborg and associates (1991) article deals with an empirical observation of confrontation (defined as a certain type of counselor verbal response) in a restricted situation (initial interviews of clients conducted by student counselors taking a counseling practicum).
Siegel's (1987) article, on the other hand, is more comprehensive in that it deals with confrontation as a therapeutic strategy during group therapy given to severely disturbed adolescents living in a single residential setting (The Augusta Mental Health Institute). Moreover, Siegel's article is conceptual rather than empirical.
Lonborg et al (1991) stated in their article that since the timing of verbal intervention was a pivotal component of therapeutic outcome, it was important to examine counselors' verbal responses as they occur in different parts of therapy; in this regard, the authors examined these verbal responses as they occurred in the initial interview, often called "intake interview," because it is commonly used to gather client information.
In their study, Lonborg and associates studied several verbal responses, only one of which was confrontation. The purposes of the study were said to be those of: a) determining if verbal responses change dover time as the initial session progressed; and b) whether beginning counselors more frequently used simple rather than complex verbal responses.
Sample subjects consisted of 8 student counselors (4 male and 4 female) who conducted initial intake interviews with a total of 13 different clients, all of whom were undergraduates; one client had to be dropped from the analysis.
Counselors' verbal responses were measured using a content analysis system, the Classification System for Counselor Responses (CSCR). Interrater agreement for the system was computed and judged to be adequate.
MANOVA and A...