Communication Study Clients as conversational agents Helen F. Massfeller *, Tom Strong Educational Studies in Counselling Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada 1. Introduction Many views exist on what it means to appropriately engage clients in counseling conversations. The extent to which clients should be involved in shaping the counseling process can call into question what counseling is. Beyond being a provider of information and a willing recipient of professional directives the role of the client is often depicted passively, unless the client is seen as resistant. Client participation in counseling is frequently described as being managed by counselors [1], a stance inviting Foucault’s [2] stinging criticism that professionals need docility from clients to help them. Some suggest that a profession- centeredness can override clients’ involvement in shaping the counseling process even with client-centered counselors [3]. In such circumstances, a kind of deference by clients can result, driving client intentions and responsiveness underground [4]. In contrast, some counselors depict clients as ‘‘co-managers’’ of the counseling process [5,6] or ‘drivers’ of that process [7]. Regardless of how clients’ participation in therapeutic dialogues is described by counselors of different orientations to practice, counseling is a process involving conversation. Depending on one’s metaphors [8], such conversation may be reduced to an information exchange and a medium for prescribing directives. But, it can also be seen as a negotiated process of therapeutic accomplishments conversationally worked up between client and counselor [9]. Our view of counseling is dialogically focused on what clients do in talking with counselors, and we draw from discourse theory and analyses [10–12]. Since the 1980s, hermeneutic and social constructionist views of meaning and dialogue have found their way into counseling approaches [13–15]. The conversational practices of these approaches have sometimes been described as collaborative and generative [16] in processes and outcomes seen as negotiated between client and counselor [17]. ‘‘Dialogic’’ has been a central construct in depicting how client and counselor negotiations elicit and include client-preferred meanings and developments [5,6,18– 22]. Despite this stance, counselors have been ambivalent over how the process expertise of the counselor should guide counseling according to counselor maps [14,23] or intentions [24]. For example, the questions counselors ask are seen as one way for speakers to exercise control of any dialogue [25–27], or intervene in the counseling process [28]. A tension can arise for counselors out of these new views on meaning and dialogue. Specifically, what stance should counselors bring to managing emergent developments in the immediacies of their dialogues with clients? A new kind of client-centeredness has been advocated [7,29]; one which arguably tilts such conversa- tional management away from counselors. However, such a stance Patient Education and Counseling 88 (2012) 196–202 A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 11 May 2011 Received in revised form 22 March 2012 Accepted 27 March 2012 Keywords: Conversational agency Psychotherapy Discourse analysis A B S T R A C T Objective: Conversational agency is our invented term that orients us to ways in which clients participate in therapeutic dialogues. In this study we examined how clients’ conversational correctives and initiatives influenced collaborative therapeutic consultations. Methods: Thirty-five single-session lifestyle consultations were videotaped in which adult clients volunteered to discuss concerns of non-clinical severity with a counselor. We discursively microanalyzed excerpts where clients initiated topic shifts or corrected counselor misunderstandings and how counselors responded to them. Results: Clients were actively involved in co-managing conversational developments during the consultations. They influenced the content and course of the conversations with the counselors by correcting, interrupting, or speaking from positions contrary or unrelated to those of the counselors. Conclusion: Clients observably influenced the conversational agenda through their correctives and initiatives if counselors were responsive during face-to-face consultations. Practice implications: Clinicians should demonstrate increased sensitivity and relational responsivity by intentionally engaging with clients’ agentive contributions to consultative dialogues. ß 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: 2500 University Drive NW, EdT 320, Educational Studies in Counselling Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. Tel.: +1 403 220 3866; fax: +1 403 282 9244. E-mail address: hfmassfe@ucalgary.ca (H.F. Massfeller). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Patient Education and Counseling jo ur n al h o mep ag e: w ww .elsevier .co m /loc ate/p ated u co u 0738-3991/$ – see front matter ß 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2012.03.014