Abstract

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Plato, The Republic Assuming this statement of Plato’s is at least partly true, one might also believe that by watching how athletes behave during practice and competition, psychologists may be able to gain valuable information from these observations in addition to talking with the athletes in counseling sessions. Although traditional discussion and assessment strategies can be excellent ways to learn about clients, observations can also be useful components of the information-gathering process. This chapter will focus on the role of observation in consultation and provide the reader with an overview of the techniques and strategies that can be used to make informative observations.