KEY ARTICLE REVIEW DOMAIN 2

McCowan, E.W., & Presbury, J.H. (2000). Meeting client resistance and
reactance with reverence. Journal of Counseling & Development, 78, 411-
419.
Purpose:

• Possible reasons a client is resistant in a counseling setting

• Proposes relational model as an approach to overcoming this resistance.
Hypothesis:

• Qualitative research/ case study

• Counselor’s techniques play a role in developing/overcoming a client’s resistance.
Literature:

• Various theories, spanning several decades.

• Some theories are direct quotes and others are interpretations.
• Traditional views of resistance as happening within the client
• Modern view where resistance involved a combination of client and therapist interactions.
Methods:

• Qualitative history of the different theories and their views of client resistance.
• A case study to support the relational model
Results:

• A relational model is proposed using a case study and viewed as having implications on the
counseling process.
Conclusion:

• Self-experiences are shaped by specific relationships.

• Taking in relational events creates self-architecture, which shape a person’s following
experience of others and the world
• New kind of relational therapy depends on the counselor’s ability and willingness to give up the
familiar and allow the client to do the “navigating” (McCowan, 2000) using their rules.
• Resistance is not just a defense. It is suggested to mean that a repetition of injury may occur.
• Resistance serves to protect a core area of self-experience
• Resistance decreases when the client perceives the counselor to be in touch with them.
Critique:
I consider the content of the article as informative and an easy read for teachers and
counselors. However I would be interested to read more case studies using the relational model of
counseling. I understand the concept that resistance is not just within the client, but rather “takes
shape as the subjective worlds of client and counselor come into contact with one another”
(McCowan, 2000), but I would like more examples, not just suicide, because as a teacher I may
never come into contact with this. However I will experience resistance in other contexts.
My concerns as I read the article were, how can one model meet the needs of all clients?
What if we used only one teaching technique for everyone? I also wondered about the skills
required to use this technique appropriately, what if the counselor was not aware of or comfortable
with including their own frames of reference into the session? Would this not be a roadblock in this
method? Lastly, with respect to the case study, I assumed that when you are dealing with suicide,
many different rules that apply. I was under the impression that you needed a contract between
client and counselor. I need to find out more information about this.
I appreciate the author’s admittance to the fact that there are limitations of the relational
model. I also appreciated the history of all of the different therapists views on resistance. It ranged
from traditional views to modern views. I would find it interesting to put this information into a
table and add to it like the one Trudy gave on the Paradigms or World Views.