Open Access

Annette van Randenborgh, Kira Barlag

• In the current manuscript, we investigate the collaboration (coproduction) in counseling sessions by means of an online-survey, in which 30 counseling practitioners took part. On the one hand, we focus on the different phases of a counseling process and survey in which phase the practitioners perceive the effort of the counselor or the client as higher. Secondly, we ask which type of input is expected from the two persons involved in a counseling session (i.e., structuring the session or coming up with impulses and ideas). Contrary to our predictions, in none of the phases the effort of the client is perceived as signifi-cantly higher than the effort of the counselor. Focusing on the role of the coun-selor, it is noteworthy that counselors perceive only surprisingly low levels of responsibility for stabilizing the counseling results and for prophylaxis. Con-cerning the type of input to a counseling session, structuring the session as well as providing impulses/ideas is predominantly seen as the counselor’s duty. From this study, it remains unclear what kind of input is expected from the client. We suggest that future research could study coproduction from the perspective of different schools of counseling separately.