An Evaluation of Non-Directive Counseling in the Treatment of Delinquents

It was the purpose of this study to make application of Carl H. Rogers' non-directive method of psychotherapy in the treatment of juvenile delinquents. The study was set up in an effort to determine the value of such a treatment procedure as one method of treating this type of individual. The hypothesis to be tested was that non-directive psychotherapy would improve the personal and social adjustment of institutionalized delinquents. Supporting this general assumption the following three corollaries were assumed: (1) that improved personal adjustment would be reflected in adjustment inventories, (2) that improved social behavior would be reflected in social behavior rating scales, and (3) that the therapeutic objectives of interviews with each subject. The general hypothesis is supported to the extent that the results support each of the corollaries. In proceding toward an experimental test of the hypotheses, testing devices were selected for the purpose of detecting and measuring imporvement that may occur in the individual during the counseling process. The means used and described in the study for this purpose are (1) expressions of the subjects, (2) the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, (3) the California Test of Personality, (4) the Haggerty-Olson-Wickman Behavior Rating Schedules. Statements made by each subject were presumed to be indicative of better adjustment when they were presumed to be indicative of better adjustment when they were of such a nature as to imply that the therapeutic objectives had been attained. The three other measuring instruments were administered to the eleven experimental subjects before, and after the counseling interviews. A comparison of the pre-test and end-test scores, was presumed to indicate the improved adjustment of the subject while the interviewing was in progress. Any improvement that might be measured by this procedure, however, may be thought of as having occurred, not only from the influence of non-directive counseling, but possibly from other sources.