Congruence and attributes of meaning: Community mental health center and vocational rehabilitation personnel

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate similarities and differences between vocational rehabilitation and community mental health center personnel in their perceptions of eight concepts relating to emotional disability, social and vocational adjustment, work, dependence, and agency affiliation, and (2) to provide descriptive information regarding the structure of these helpers' value systems as reflected in their ratings of the eight concepts. Twenty vocational rehabilitation counselors and 20 community mental health workers served as subjects. The semantic differential technique served as the basis for construction of the research instrument. Data were analyzed by means of a two-way analysis of variance for repeated measures. Results indicated that (1) the groups differed in their ratings over all eight concepts, (2) some of the concepts were seen more favorably by both groups than other concepts, but (3) particular concepts did not discriminate between the groups. Findings are discussed and tentative hypotheses are presented.