38-2 The Effects of Therapeutic Relationship on an Adolescent Victim of Bullying: A Case Study
This case study aims to explore the counseling experiences of an adolescent who was bullied for an extended period of time in high school, with the focuses on how he used self-injury behaviors as a coping strategy and how therapeutic relationship factors contributed to the counseling work with this client. A counseling psychologist worked with the client by using the concept of the relational depth over 18 sessions. After the terminal of the counseling, the client was interviewed retrospectively to elicit his recall of the therapy experiences over the entire counseling process. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed in its entirety. The author used content analysis approach to analyze the data. Four facilitative factors were identified based on the data analysis. They include: a) counseling with relational depth to encourage client to engage in different cope strategies in dealing with the bullying instead of self-injurious behaviors; b) genuine caring and empathy on the part of the counselor; c) an equalitarian client-counselor relationship; and d) possessing the qualities of transparency and advocacy in the counseling work. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed.
Keywords
bullying ； self-injury ； therapeutic relationship
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