Abstract

Counseling sessions (124) of American and Polish counsellors-in-training were analyzed for externalizations of mindfulness, empathy, and intersubjective-affinity in counseling discourses. The mixed-methods study aimed to identify metadiscursive patterns (pre/post-instruction) of American (n=28) and Polish (n=34) counselors-in-training, cross-group differences, and effective empathic/mindful language-uses to inform counseling-technique pedagogy and therapeutic practice/practitioners. The coding-scheme of audio-recorded counselor-talk used a taxonomy of metadiscourse w/sentiments (40+ categories) that draws on Hallidayan systemic-functionalism, sociolinguistic variation and Vande Kopple’s metadiscourse model. Also, Affective-Cognitive Empathy, Listening Styles Profile/LSP-16, Myers-Briggs Type-Indicator/MBTI (personality-types) and demographics (age, teaching-experience, tertiary-education) were measured. Among other findings, American counselors-in-training indicated higher empathy (on the self-report measure though). They were more verbose and had more teaching-experience than Polish counterparts. Interestingly, Polish counseling-trainees showed greater People and Content-orientation in listening (LSP-16). Within-groups discourse analyses show increased mindfulness/intersubjectivity in both ethnicities. The findings seem attributable to metacognitively-rich instruction with dyadic practice-series. Between-groups comparisons reveal different ethnic-group trajectories. American-counsellors highlight implicit stance, simply-structured, sentiment-rich counsels, while Polish counsellors – causally-linked, complex-structures, with epistemic-support, ‘socially lubricated’ with intersubjective/”camaraderie”-marking. Cross-ethnic results suggest different conceptualizations of client-needs. American counsellors-in-training assisted clients with more modulating, sentiment-attuning counsels, while Polish – with logical-appeals and persuasive engagement-discourse. The study offers tentative implications for institutional/ educational practitioners.

Presenters

Beata Latawiec
Associate Professor - Educational Psychology, Intervention Services and Leadership in Education, College of Applied Studies, Wichita State University, Kansas, United States

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Learning in Higher Education

KEYWORDS

Counseling Technique, Discourse and Metadiscourse Analysis, Empathy, Mindfulness, Higher Education

Digital Media

Videos

Downloads