Carl Rogers postulates that the necessary and sufficient conditions for personality change are congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy. He predicted that personality change would occur in clients who perceive the counselling conditions in a therapeutic relationship.
Julian Rotter's description in internal-external locus of control is a useful construct in studying personality change.
Given the compatibility of Rogers' description of personality change and Rotter's description of internal-external locus of control, it was hypothesized that there would be a difference in the locus of control change scores between the group of clients who perceive their counsellors as having the counselling conditions to a high degree and the group of clients who perceive their counsellors as having the counselling conditions to a low degree.
Subjects for the study were self-referred clients who sought personal adjustment counselling from school counsellors who volunteered to participate in the study. The Barret-Lennard Relationship Inventory (Form OS-M-64) was used to determine the client's perception of the counselling conditions. The difference between the Social Reaction Inventory pre-test and posttest scores was used to indicate changes in locus of control over the twelve week experimental period.
The hypothesis was not supported, A number of factors could account for the results. Perhaps one of the more significant is the possibility that the personality change or at least the measurable response to counselling is not as apparent as had been hypothesized. Therefore more research is suggested in the area of personality change in response to counselling experiences.