Effects of an acceptance and commitment-based psychoeducation program on prospective psychological counselors’ some personal and professional qualifications

Değerli F. İ., ODACI H.

Current Psychology, vol.43, no.1, pp.248-260, 2024 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 43 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2024
  • Doi Number: 10.1007/s12144-023-04274-0
  • Journal Name: Current Psychology
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, IBZ Online, BIOSIS, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, Psycinfo
  • Page Numbers: pp.248-260
  • Keywords: Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), Psychological flexibility, Self-compassion, Empathy, Effective counselor characteristics, COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY, ACTION QUESTIONNAIRE-II, SELF-COMPASSION, EMPATHY, MINDFULNESS, ANXIETY, INFLEXIBILITY, ADOLESCENT, VALIDITY, WORKING
  • Karadeniz Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.This study aimed to investigate the effects of acceptance and commitment-based psychoeducation program on prospective psychological counselors’ some personal (psychological flexibility and self-compassion) and professional (empathy and effective counselor characteristics) qualifications. The research was designed as a pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental study with follow-up measurements. The study group consisted of 32 prospective psychological counselors drawn from department of guidance and psychological counseling. They were assigned to the experimental and control groups (16 by 16). While the experimental group was given an acceptance and commitment-based psychoeducation program consisting of 10 sessions, no intervention was performed for the participants in the control group. Pretest, posttest, first follow-up (3 months), and second follow-up (9 months) measurements of the experimental and control groups were taken. A two-way analysis of variance in repeated measurements test was used via the IBM SPSS software package. The results revealed that the program was not only significantly effective in increasing the psychological flexibility and self-compassion levels of prospective psychological counselors but also resulted in a permanent effect. It was found that the intervention program did not lead to a significant change in the empathy levels and effective counselor characteristics of the prospective psychological counselors.