TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

38 The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 As the majority of respondents could not draw from personal experience, the testimony of friends often was their closest connection to professional counselors. Stephanie mentioned that common knowledge was a salient influence in how she came to think of counselors. Later, she elaborated this could be from talking with “friends that went to go see a counselor” and who could fill in the gaps of her understanding. Randy affirmed the power generated when he will “hear other people’s experiences.” Obviously, respondents in our sample could not judge the relative quality of their friends’ experiences or the degree of truth represented by their friends’ accounts. But hearing what their friends told them left indelible impressions, nonetheless. Common Knowledge Characteristics Upon examination of their information sources, respondents reflected on the characteristics of their sources. Specifically, respondents mentioned that their knowledge about unfamiliar topics such as professional counselors may have little-to-no factual basis or may be unreliable. Mandy shared that respondents evaluate counselors by “just what they think they know. It might not necessarily come off of anything.” Respondents often were aware of this vulnerable reasoning, but when asked to offer their opinions, they drew on the ambiguous common knowledge anyhow. Linda stated her perception that this concept was “possibly general statistics or people’s assumptions about professional counselors, not necessarily what’s true.” In consideration of the often inaccurate portrayal of counselors through movies, magazines, and additional sources of media, these assumptions may differ widely from reality. Kevin offered this reasoning about how common knowledge affects perceptions about counselors: “People . . . think they know stuff about stuff, and really don’t. . . . So that’s why the majority of people don’t even know much about counselors and stuff like that. They hear one thing, and generalize it about everybody.” The tendency to generalize can be potently beneficial, depending on the accuracy of the source, of course. This principle has important ramifications for the development of counseling as a potential profession. A second characteristic of common knowledge in our study is an inability of participants to recall the sources from which the information comes. Clearly, when making decisions such as choosing counseling services, knowing potential sources behind the motivation for utilizing them are important. Lori mentioned that students often rely on “things from a long time ago that they may not remember specifically” in order to evaluate the positive or negative effects of seeking professional counseling services. Similar to Rob’s tendency to generalize, our subjects’ distant recollections were said to be formative in their perceptions, however accurate they may or may not be. Steve elucidated that this source of common knowledge may be far removed from the true source: “Like second and third hand information about people who have gone to counselors, again television and movies, the joke from the Sunday newspaper, you know.” Perceptions for these students are formulated from a conglomeration of sources, credible or not, evidently even from the comics section of the Sunday newspaper. While respondents relied heavily on word of mouth, Jordan did speak of the possible flaws in this resource: “I guess from other people talking to them about it. You can’t just know, obviously, but obviously they don’t remember where they’ve heard it from.” While acquaintances and peers may be eager to share their opinions, our subjects evidently often were unable to support their opinions with factual sources. Cathy concurred in stating that common knowledge of counselors is generated by “probably a little bit of what they fill in, what they assume.” Not only are their potential sources emitting their own assumptions, but the respondents fall prey to the same tendency in order to compensate for lack of information. Sandy further clarified, “it may just be, I assume they’re this way, but they really didn’t base that off of anything,” again revealing the flaws in their apt perception formation. Effects of Common Knowledge Without doubt, the lack of verifiable validity found in common knowledge about counselors creates powerful effects for the advancement of counseling as a profession. Namely, not only is the reputation of services potentially marred, but respondents also may be less likely to seek out counseling when needed due to their incorrect assumptions and faulty sources. Respondents reported feeling that the media, through movies, magazines or books, too often generates negative connotations with professional counseling images. Rachel noted: “I think that it [media] negatively affects their perception of professional counselors.” When prodded to share more, she continued: “A lot of times in TV and in movies they’re portrayed as odd people so I guess that’s the image that a lot of people have, because going back to their philosophy in