Accountability and Outcomes in the Counseling Profession Assignment

Accountability and Outcomes in the Counseling Profession - Assignment Example Most therapy is also not conducted on a quick basis and often takes multiple sessions over a given length of time in order to address the problem. With healthcare reform and the declining economy, many third parties and governmental agencies question whether the counseling they are funding is effective or not. The field of program evaluation aims to attempt to provide a systematic approach to evaluating the methods to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of counseling techniques and strategies. Increasing pressure for efficiency has lead many to question the accountability of therapy techniques used on clients. Is there a way in order to gauge the effectiveness of counselors when they conduct therapy on clients? Many people are interested in a way of showing this effectiveness, but therapists often argue that it is impractical to measure one’s improvement in therapy due to success being really immeasurable (Sexton, 1999). It depends on why the person is coming in for cou nseling. Some are in so that they can get a quick fix to their problems while others continually come in for support; this poses a problem when looking at counseling effectiveness. When looking at counseling programs, we are focusing on the outcomes which can be divided into process objectives and outcome objectives.