Developing Clinically Relevant Vignettes from Empirical Data as Teaching Tools for Counselors-in-Training in Pennsylvania
Open Access
- Author:
- Gray, Joy
- Graduate Program:
- Counselor Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 21, 2024
- Committee Members:
- P Murphy, Program Head/Chair
Abenaa Jones, Outside Unit & Field Member
Brandy Henry, Major Field Member
Deirdre O'Sullivan, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Carlomagno Panlilio, Outside Field Member - Keywords:
- mental health counseling
vignette construction
multicultural and social justice counseling
cluster analysis
Ecosocial
Counselor Education
Client Conceptualization
Pennsylvania - Abstract:
- Counselors, clients, and their mental health are situated in ecological and social contexts, which counselors must take into account when working with clients. This is done by using the multicultural and social justice counseling competencies. How counselors conceptualize clients informs diagnosis and treatment, and counselors who do not work in a culturally responsive manner may contribute to harmful and disproportionate outcomes for clients. Counselor training programs may be inadequate in developing culturally responsive counselors, and vignettes which are often used to assess responses and conceptualization of hypothetical clients may be limited in their effectiveness. This study demonstrates a method to create clinically relevant vignettes as developed from empirical data which could be used in counselor training programs within Pennsylvania. Cluster analyses analyze data from Chester County and Huntingdon County from the 2021 administration of the Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS), operated by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. The identified clusters are then linguistically and graphically transformed into vignettes stylized as client referrals. The results indicate a two-cluster solution for each county, representing a low need and a high need cluster. These results are supported by literature on ecosocial factors that impact mental health. The vignettes are effective in their ability to meet vignette creation guidelines whilst being grounded in empirical data. Demographic data may be used in a variety of ways with the vignettes to explore counselor understanding of cultural competencies and how it impacts their conceptualization of clients when interpreting referral information. A discussion of the results and implications is presented along with future directions of research and limitations of this study.