Responding to Client Emotional Expression: A Study from the Perspective of Self-Reported Securely-Attached Novice Counsellors

Abstract

Client emotional expression in session is valuable as it promotes clients’ sense of agency, increases their capacity for introspection, and is linked to decreases in depressive symptoms. By extension, understanding counsellors’ responses to client emotional expression is relevant. In the current study, retrospective accounts of self-reported securely-attached novice counsellors were collected for the purpose of exploring how they responded to client emotional expression. To obtain meaningful and descriptive accounts of the data, a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used as the research methodology. Resultant themes showed that novice counsellors reported experiencing their own covert and overt emotional reactions in response to clients’ emotional expression. They also reported struggling with the decision to use their preferred response. The results provided insights into how the task of responding to client emotion was complex for novice counsellors. Analyses and understanding of these results have potential developmental and educational implications.