Mutual aid counselling : effectiveness in aiding daily coping
Date
1978
Authors
McCall, Barbara Marilyn
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Abstract
Mutual aid counselling is a cooperative, reciprocal counselling method for lay people, created by Dr. R. Vance Peavy. Historically based on principles of both lay counselling and self-help groups, and theoretically based on existential counselling theory, this method trains and pairs individuals to counsel one another, reciprocally assuming the roles of counsellor and counsellee, or, in mutual aid counselling terms, of assistant and person.
Since little empirical research has been conducted on this method, the present study examined the effectiveness of mutual aid counselling in aiding the daily life coping skills of its participants.
Eighty-six university students, enrolled in a helping relationships course, were the subjects for the study, sixty-five of whom were receiving training in mutual aid counselling, and twenty-one who were not receiving the training. The twenty-one students not receiving the training became control subjects, and the sixty-five students who became experimental subjects, were further divided into three groups in a design resembling Campbell and Stanley's (1963) Solomon Four-Group Design.
A communication questionnaire was administered as a pretest to the control group and to one experimental group, and as a posttest to all four groups. In addition, thirteen students from the experimental pool of subjects volunteered to have four progressive tape-recorded interviews, where they were asked to discuss their feelings about and opinions on mutual aid counselling.
Analysis of variance and "t" tests failed to yield significant results. Outcomes of the subjective case study data were, however, of a more positive nature, indicating support for the question of effectiveness of mutual aid counselling in aiding daily coping.
Recommendations for future research and implications of the present study for both professional counsellors and society in general were discussed.