Disabled counselors: perception of their effectiveness in a therapeutic relationship.

It has not been delineated how a disabled person is viewed when interacting with another person. The present study investigated subject perception of a counselor in a wheelchair who was seen in a video-taped counseling interview. Subject degree of body satisfaction was measured to assess the importance of this variable in the perception. Evaluation of the counselor was by the Barett-Lennard Relationship Inventory that measures four dimensions of a relationship: emphatic understanding, positive regard, unconditional regard and congruence. Results suggest that a counselor in a wheelchair is perceived more favorably than an able-bodied counselor along three of these dimensions and female subjects perceive him more favorably than male subjects do. Degree of body satisfaction does not seem to be a factor in this perception.