Interactional Counseling

Abstract

Despite the pervasive influence of interactiontal ideas in fields of counseling and psychotherapy, the integration of those ideas into a cohlerent framework of theory, practice, and research has been lacking. The goals of this article are to provide an integrative review of interactional concepts within counseling and to show that the interactional view is a unique and valuable per-spective for counseling psychology. The article is organized into four major sections. The first section provides an introduction to the interactional assiniptioils, concepts, and principles that underlie an interactional view of counseling. The second section presents an interactional view of psychological problems and client symptoms. The third section presents an interactional view of the counseling process, including the targets of change within counseling, change mechanisms, and specific change strategies. The fourth section reviews current interactional research in counseling and introduces several emerging research methods for the study of interactional concepts and processes.