2023 Volume 26 Issue 2 Pages 200-208
[Purpose]
This study aimed to clarify the difficulties, anxieties, and thoughts that counselors experience when changing counselors in student counseling.
[Methods]
Six counselors who had experience as both predecessors and successors were interviewed. From the obtained interview data, we extracted remarks about difficulties, worries, and thoughts at the time of takeover, and then categorized them.
[Results]
A total of 216 statements were extracted, and three categories of “support for students,” “relationship between counselors,” and “procedures at the time of takeover” were obtained.
[Discussion/Conclusion]
In “Support for students,” it was shown that counselors experience difficulty in caring for students’ reactions caused by the takeover, while experiencing fears and guilt about the interruption. In “Relationships between Counselors,” the psychological relationship between the counselors represented the difficulties and worries behind the act of handing over. However, the difficulty of “procedures for handing over” was difficulty in procedures such as judging continuation, face-to-face meetings, information sharing, recording creation and management, and securing time. For example, some counselors wanted to meet face-to-face with other counselors, but their schedules did not allow it. Some counselors also wanted to take over without preconceived ideas, while others wanted to share information carefully. Based on the difficulties experienced by counselors at the time of such a takeover, ideas and points to keep in mind when handing over were considered.
