Haley (1963) described the counseling relationship in terms of the patterns of communicative behavior exchanged by the interactants. To investigate Haley's assertion that successful counseling is characterized by the counselor's control of the definition of the counseling relationship as a complementary relationship in which the counselor is in a "one-up" position, an analysis of counselor-client transactions for Topic Control was conducted. Trained raters assessed 18 full case transcripts of actual counseling interviews. The same transcripts were also analyzed by trained raters for client change over the course of treatment. The results did not support the notion that across successful dyads counselors exhibit a greater measure of Topic Control than clients; nor did they support the hypothesis that across successful and unsuccessful counselors, successful counselors exhibit a greater measure of Topic Control. There was no support to show that across successful and unsuccessful clients, unsuccessful clients exhibit a greater measure of Topic Control. Finally, the results did not support the notion that across unsuccessful dyads, clients exhibit greater Topic Control than counselors. (Author/JAC)