ABSTRACT Professional mentoring is a potential protective factor against burnout and stress in school counselors. However, existing mentoring measures are limited by weak development procedures, inconsistent psychometric support, and limited practical use. We sought to develop and evaluate the Mentoring Engagement Scale (MES), a self‐report instrument designed to measure a person's level of engagement in receiving professional mentoring, among a sample of US school counselors. The research was conducted in two studies. In the first study, content validity was assessed using Lawshe's quantitative approach to capture expert evaluation of item essentialness. The refined scale was then administered to a sample of 324 practicing US school counselors. Exploratory factor analyses revealed a two‐factor structure— Investment and Impact —accounting for 64.2% of variance. MES scores demonstrated strong internal consistency and evidence of response validity. These findings provide initial support for the MES as a measure of school counselors’ mentoring engagement.
ABSTRACT Talk‐based interventions are the standard of care in substance use residential treatment, yet little is known about how adults experience alternative approaches like equine‐assisted psychotherapy (EAP). This hermeneutic phenomenological study explored how 12 adults experienced group EAP sessions during residential substance use treatment at three facilities in the United States, and what meaning the experience held in their overall recovery journeys. Analysis of semistructured interviews yielded six themes: nervous system regulation, authentic connection, present‐moment awareness, experiential learning, transcendent meaning, and transformed perception of treatment. Participants’ accounts described two facets of the horse–human encounter: experience in the arena (reset, relief, practice) and meaning in recovery (acceptance, hope, freedom). Participants’ lived experience suggested that EAP engaged preverbal, somatic, and relational dimensions of the recovery process. Implications for clinical practice, EAP practitioner training, and treatment program design are considered.
Although generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has been used as a source of general health information, its specific pertinence to mental health remains unclear. To discern if the use of GenAI for health issues was associated with anxiety and depression, we analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of 96,205 US college students. Complex-samples multivariable logistic regression models were performed, adjusting for demographic characteristics. Students who engaged with GenAI for health issues demonstrated higher odds of screening positive for clinically significant anxiety (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.52, 95% CI [1.34, 1.73], p < 0.001) and depression (aOR = 1.46, 95% CI [1.28, 1.67], p < 0.001). These associations remained consistent in sensitivity analyses controlling for prior anxiety and depression diagnoses. Findings suggest that GenAI use for health issues may serve as a marker of anxiety and depression among college students, with implications for ways counselors assess and conceptualize practice initiatives.
Youth mental and behavioral health are significantly shaped by both adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and positive childhood experiences (PCEs). Yet, counseling scholarship and training often address these domains separately, limiting their translation to counseling practice. In this article, we introduce the positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACE) framework, an integrative and practical model that positions ACEs as barriers/risks and PCEs as protective/facilitative factors within youths' family, school, community, and intersecting identity contexts. Specifically, we (a) synthesize key gaps in existing ACE and PCE research, (b) articulate the theoretical foundations of the PACE framework, (c) outline its core principles, and (d) demonstrate its applications through a clinical vignette using Ivey's five-stage counseling model and a school-based multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS).
This study investigated the impact of client outcome expectations on symptom improvement and evaluated the underlying mediating roles of therapeutic agency and working alliance. Data were collected from 73 clients across 12 sessions and analyzed using a multilevel lagged mediation framework. Outcome expectations significantly predicted subsequent symptom reduction at both the between-person and within-person levels, functioning as both trait-like and state-like factors. Therapeutic agency emerged as a significant mediator at both levels: clients with higher average expectations exhibited greater agency, which was associated with improved symptoms (between-person effect), and session-to-session increases in expectations predicted enhanced next-session agency, which in turn predicted symptom reduction (within-person effect). Working alliance did not demonstrate a significant mediating effect at either level. Within this sample, these findings point to the potential value of monitoring session-to-session fluctuations in outcome expectations and implementing targeted interventions to facilitate their translation into therapeutic agency.
