Evaluation of developmental health counseling: healthfulness of self-support behavior

Twenty-two adult patients in a long-term illness clinic who chose not to attend a group counseling project on self support and who were matched on age and education with those who did attend were selected for the purpose of investigating the relationship between their general adjustment and two potentially interrealted types of behavior: self-support behavior and fundamental interpersonal behavior. General adjustment was the sum of scores from Bell's Adjustment Inventory on emotional and home disturbances plus the number of diagnosed problems on the master list in the patient record. Self-support was the amount of use of usual ways of interacting taught in counseling to elicit from others ideas for solution of problems and to elicit from self the incentive to implement solutions. Fundamental interpersonal behavior was individual and combined scores on Schutz's FIRO-B test of self-perceived interpersonal behavior expressed by the self along the dimensions of inclusion, affection, and control. Two-way orthogonal analysis of variance revealed two sets of behavior significantly improved general adjustment: 1) inclusion, affection, and control, and 2) control and self-support.