The relationship between clinical graduate students\u27 experiences with their educators and their views on therapist-client dual role relationships.

The training of clinical psychologists was examined to better understand the influence graduate school and professional socialization has on future therapists\u27 views of dual role relationships with clients. Graduate students currently enrolled in clinical or counselling psychology programs in Canada were surveyed (response rate of 37.9%). A questionnaire was developed to measure the frequency with which students experienced a variety of professional, social, financial, and dual role interactions with their educators. The Therapeutic Practice Survey developed by Borys (1988) was used to solicit graduate students\u27 judgements of the ethicality of various behaviours between therapist and client. Male students reported more social interactions with their educators than did female students. In contrast, female students experienced more professional role violations by their educators, particularly major/professional dual role violations such as sexual harassment and having had an educator who was also their therapist. Standard multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the ability of selected variables, such as students\u27 experiences with their educators, to predict the ethicality judgement scores for Incidental Involvements, Social/Financial Involvements, and Dual Professional Roles subscales of the Therapeutic Practice Survey. Students\u27 experiences with their educators, level of clinical experience, and the presence or absence of ethics education contributed significantly to students\u27 ethical judgements regarding Social/Financial Involvements and Dual Professional Roles with experiences with their educators judged Dual Professional Roles between therapists and their clients to be more ethical than did students who did not report such experiences. This suggests that students\u27 experiences with their educators influence students\u27 views about dual role relationships between therapist and client. This effect is mediated by student gender. Therefore, educators need to do more than teach ethics to their students--they need to behave ethically as well. Changes in clinical training needs to begin with educators and the present learning environment of universities.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1997 .M66. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 59-08, Section: B, page: 4476. Adviser: Charlene Y. Senn. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1997