ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to present a synthesis of the ‘new directions’ in counselling evaluation by tying current thinking into practical and experiential learning gleaned from implementing evaluation in a national counselling organisation, namely Relate (Relate Marriage Guidance). Relate is the largest relational counselling organisation in the voluntary sector (Lewis et al. 1992). Yet in terms of evaluating counselling outcomes, until recently only one substantial study had been conducted in over fifty years of counselling practice (Hunt 1985). The literature contains many explanations for such a paucity of evaluation, and Lewis et al. (1992), in their critical analysis of marriage guidance, present a synthesis which emphasises scepticism and constraint. Specific examples cited include the following: the availability of valid frames of reference (Wallis 1968) and appropriate measures (Heisler 1977); the preoccupation with theory development over empirical evaluation (Hooper 1985); anxiety about breaches of confidentiality (Tyndall 1985); and the tendency for research activity to slip down the list of priorities in the face of pressures to maintain a service (Tyndall 1993). Lewis et al. (1992:254) conclude by maintaining that ‘on the whole, client-centred approaches were not seen to lend themselves to or invite evaluative research’.
