Counselors' Psychological Counseling Skills And Attitudes Towards Providing Counseling Help On Professional Satisfaction

Abstract

In training of qualified counselors and supporting their individual and professional development, it is considered important to reveal the quality of the relationship between the counseling skills of psychological counselors and their attitudes towards providing psychological help and their professional satisfaction. In this context, it was investigated whether there is a significant difference in psychological counselors' professional satisfaction, counseling skills, and attitudes towards providing counseling assistance in terms of their views on the efficiency of the courses of individual and group counseling practice, counseling principles and techniques or their equivalents. In addition, the effects of psychological counselors' counseling skills and their attitudes towards providing counseling help on their professional satisfaction are examined. For this purpose, 309 school counselors from different levels of educational institutions consititute the study group.Occupational Satisfaction Scale (OSS), Counseling Self-Estimate Inventory (COSI), Attitude Scale Towards Giving Psychological Counseling Helping (ASTGPCH) and Personal Information Form were used to collect data. Significant differences was found from nonparametric analysis of opinions of efficiency of the course of individual and group counseling, as well as the priciples and techniques of psychological counseling course. Analyzed by multiple regression, counselor's counseling skills and attititudes toward counseling services explain their proffessional satisfaction by 20.9%. All evaluated together, quality of the education received by psychological counselors during their undergraduate education, their psychological counselling skill competencies and their positive attitudes towards providing psychological counselling help were found important factors in terms of their proffessional satisfaction.