Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the obstructive factors of Korean counselor's awareness in terms of their developmental level. Prior to this research the questionnaire, which consists of 44 items requiring obstructive factors they could experience in terms of counselor's awareness during sessions, was made. The research participants were 173 counselors and therapists(22 male and 151 female) from various settings in Korea. All participants were consisted of 62 novice practitioners, 70 more experienced practitioners, and 41 highly experienced practitioners. One-way ANOVA was conducted to test the hypothesis that significant difference in degrees and contents would appear by the counselor developmental level. And Scheffé post hoc tests were used to examine differences in details, appeared across the counselor experience span which was operationalized as novice, more experienced and highly experienced. As a result, significant group differences were found on 5 clusters: countertransference; counselor's preconception and carelessness; counselor's misunderstanding of client's characteristics and client's attributes; perception of counseling process and result; counselor's lack of competency. In the cluster of external factor regardless of counseling itself, no difference was showed by counselor experience level. Investigating the difference by counselor developmental level in each item belonged to each domain, difference in degrees of influence on counselor's awareness was revealed. This findings suggest that counselor's ability in awareness could make a difference by experience level.