TPC-Journal-V4-Issue5

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 5 469 lack of sufficient training, overwhelming caseload, job burnout and personal mental health difficulties (Langley et al., 2010; Suldo, Friedrich, & Michalowski, 2010). While researchers have evaluated the influence of SMH provider personal characteristics in relation to the delivery of high-quality SMH services, little attention has been paid to the importance of counseling self- efficacy (CSE). CSE is widely accepted as an important precursor to competent clinical practice (Kozina, Grabovari, De Stefano, & Drapeau, 2010). Further, building CSE is considered an important strategy in active learning when providing training in evidence-based therapies (Beidas & Kendall, 2010), and CSE in EBP is believed to be essential to implementation (Aarons, 2005). However, researchers have yet to systematically include measures of CSE in studies of EBP utilization by SMH providers. Self-Efficacy Social-cognitive theory and its central construct, self-efficacy, have received much attention in the psychological literature, with more than 10,000 studies including these as central variables in the past 25 years (Judge, Jackson, Shaw, Scott, & Rich, 2007). Self-efficacy is defined as an individual’s beliefs about his or her ability to achieve desired levels of performance (Bandura, 1994), and it plays a key role in the initiation and maintenance of human behavior (Iannelli, 2000). Given the influence of self-efficacy expectancies on performance, researchers have evaluated how self-efficacy impacts a variety of action-related domains, including career selection (e.g., Branch & Lichtenberg, 1987; Zeldin, Britner, & Pajares, 2008), health-behavior change (e.g., Ramo, Prochaska, & Myers, 2010; Sharpe et al., 2008) and work-related performance (e.g., Judge et al., 2007; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Specific to the mental health field, previous investigations have focused on how self-efficacy is related to counseling performance. Counseling Self-Efficacy The construct of CSE is defined as an individual’s beliefs about his or her ability to effectively counsel a client in the near future (Larson & Daniels, 1998). Studies of the structure and influence of CSE among a variety of mental health professionals, including counseling trainees, master’s-level counselors, psychologists, school counselors and students from related professions (e.g., clergy, medicine) have yielded mixed findings. Social desirability, counselor personality, aptitude, achievement (Larson et al., 1992) and counselor age (Watson, 2012) have shown small to moderate associations with CSE. CSE also is related to external factors, including the perceived and objective work environment, supervisor characteristics, and level or quality of supervision (Larson & Daniels, 1998). However, the relationship of CSE with level of training is unclear. For the most part, CSE is stronger for individuals with at least some counseling experience than for those with none (Melchert, Hays, Wiljanen, & Kolocek, 1996; Tang et al., 2004). While the amount of training and education obtained have been reported as statistically significant predictors of degree of CSE (Larson & Daniels, 1998; Melchert et al., 1996), more recent work has not supported the existence of such predictive relationships (Tang et al., 2004). It also has been suggested that once a counselor has obtained advanced graduate training beyond the master’s level, the influence of experience on CSE becomes rather minimal (Larson, Cardwell, & Majors, 1996; Melchert et al., 1996; Sutton & Fall, 1995). Some work has been done to evaluate interventions aimed at enhancing CSE by utilizing the four primary sources of self-efficacy, as defined by Bandura (1977; i.e., mastery, modeling, social persuasion, affective arousal). In two studies involving undergraduate recreation students, Munson, Zoerink & Stadulis (1986) found that modeling with role-play and visual imagery served to enhance CSE greater than a wait-list control group.