ABSTRACT From a linguistic and humanistic frame that treats language as a window onto mind and relationship, this quasi‐experimental mixed‐methods study examines 52 counselor‐in‐training (CIT)–client dyadic sessions as the site where mindful intersubjectivity, affiliative empathy, and collaborative alliance are created in discourse. Over a metacognitively rich counseling‐techniques course, pretest–posttest analyses of metadiscourse with sentiments documented CITs’ mindful development. Reductions in directive prompting and emphatic intonation supported client autonomy and therapeutic alliance, whereas increases in affiliative disclosure, evidential justification, and attention to client feelings enhanced relational attunement and motivational‐interviewing evocation. Clients exhibited less evaluative restraint, greater positivity and evidentiality, and increased discourse quantity and quality—indicating greater openness. Clients’ mirroring of CIT mindful features reflected concerted alignment toward person‐centered communication. These patterns were associated with affinity, empathic communion, and metacognitive instruction with dyadic practice. The study offers linguistic tools for supervision and humanistic pedagogy to strengthen CIT self‐efficacy and client change.
ABSTRACT Mental health professionals (MHPs) engage in emotionally intensive work that places them at increased risk for burnout. Although burnout and resilience have been widely studied, less attention has been given to the role of adult attachment in shaping MHPs’ vulnerability to burnout and capacity for recovery. Informed by emotionally focused therapy (EFT), this study examined relationships among attachment style, resilience, and burnout in a sample of 271 MHPs in the United States. Participants completed self‐report measures of attachment, resilience, and burnout. The results suggest that attachment styles and resilience are significantly associated with burnout among MHPs. Secure attachment was associated with lower burnout and greater resilience, whereas dismissing/avoidant and fearful/disorganized were associated with higher burnout. Resilience mediated the relationships between each attachment style and burnout, except for dismissing/avoidant attachment. Findings highlight relational and intrapersonal processes underlying MHPs’ burnout and underscore the importance of attachment security and resilience in supporting well‐being.
ABSTRACT Generative AI chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT) are now part of humans’ relational milieu. Most people interact with them, and ChatGPT's most frequent usages are akin to common purposes of humanistic counseling: therapy or companionship, finding purpose, and organizing one's life. Studies are emerging from counselor educators and others to show beneficial experience and effects of intentional chatbot use. At the same time, large‐scale studies show that increased use of ChatGPT is associated with loneliness, dependence, and lower socialization. The purpose of this paper is to offer points of consideration as counselors deliberate the integration of chatbots in therapeutic practice. To do so, this paper discusses common usage of chatbots to facilitate self‐actualization; negative effects of high chatbot usage; assessment of user perceptions of chatbot facilitative responses; ChatGPT's own description of empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence; non‐humanistic aspects of chatbot facilitation from the authors’ perspective; and suggestions for improved chatbot usage.
ABSTRACT This paper examines the implications of artificial intelligence for the practice of psychotherapy by distinguishing between algorithmic capabilities and human existential capacities. Drawing on phenomenological and existential philosophy—particularly the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, and Waldenfels—it proposes an existential reduction that brackets what can be replicated by AI to clarify what remains irreducibly human. While AI systems can simulate therapeutic techniques, they lack the existential ground of Care ( Sorge ), ethical subjectivity, and responsivity that structure human being‐with‐others. These capacities are ontological conditions that make psychotherapy possible as a lived, relational encounter rather than techniques or skills. Through clinical illustration and philosophical analysis, the paper argues that psychotherapy cannot be reduced to technique without losing its essential character. The rise of AI reopens the question of what it means to be human. The figure of the “last scribe” serves as a historical analogy, suggesting that while methods may change, existential capacities persist beyond technological displacement.
ABSTRACT This study explored the self‐identity experiences of Afro‐Caribbean women college students. The purpose of this study was to understand the distinct self‐identity experiences of these students to inform culturally specific, humanistic supports unique to them rather than conflating their experiences with the broader Black student community. This feminist phenomenological study explored the self‐identity experiences of six Afro‐Caribbean women undergraduate college students. Data analysis revealed that ethnicity served as the primary lens through which they perceived their self‐identity, including their understanding of gender and race. The study findings also indicated that student experiences of ethnic marginalization fostered resistance to colonial stereotypes and that inadequate counseling services negatively impact their well‐being. The findings emphasize the need for college counselors to prioritize exploring self‐identity issues among Afro‐Caribbean undergraduate students to better support their well‐being.
