The Educational Counseling For Disabled Student-Athletes And The Rogerian Perspective

Abstract

The helping relationship represents the main scenario in which the educational counselor and tutor act to manage and successfully develop the dialogue with the disabled student-athlete in the university and the school. The dialogue occurring in this relation becomes a "helping interview." One of the prominent scholars who studied the helping interview in the framework of the helping relationship was the father of humanistic psychology, Carl Rogers. The helping interview is challenging to accomplish because it needs a specific preparatory exercise. The helping interview is always influenced by the type of subjects it is aimed at and its context. Currently, there are few studies on the topic of educational counseling for disabled college student-athletes. The purpose of our study is to review the existing scientific literature on counseling for disabled student-athletes in universities and to explore the issues involved. To better understand these issues, we conducted a case study with some disabled student-athletes we interviewed. We transcribed the interviews, analysed the qualitative data collected, and processed them using qualitative analysis software. The analysis allowed us to identify, through the drawing of a conceptual map, the needs of student-athletes. Moreover, it has allowed us to draw up a list of specific questions that, in light of the Rogerian dialogic approach to helping relationships, can be used by a counselor for the educational counseling of student-athletes both in the university and school.

Keywords: Carl Rogers, disability, helping relationship, student-athlete

Introduction

Counseling and tutoring for student-athletes with disabilities are always highly complex actions. Counselors, tutors, and society often misunderstand disability because, in general, they tend to view disability as an adverse event and as something undesirable. However, this is not necessarily the experience or belief of many people with disabilities (Dunn & Brody, 2008), for whom the latter sometimes represents the normal condition by which they are in the world and perceive themselves (Wright, 1991).

Counselors and university tutors assisting disabled student-athletes and their families need to understand the experience and process that leads to society's perception of disability. A lack of adequate training in this area can limit the understanding and effectiveness of their intervention. Their intervention consists primarily of providing help to disabled student-athletes to respond to the problems generated by their disabilities successfully and creatively, using them in a positive, ameliorative, and transformative way (Foley-Nicpon & Lee, 2012).

People who are not familiar with disability always focus on the negative aspects of having or living with a disability and tend to identify the disabled person primarily through this characteristic, failing to go beyond it (Smart, 2009). These negative attitudes, such as beliefs, convictions, and prejudices, also affect university tutors and counselors. Even if counseling professionals and tutors are well disposed of (as it is natural given their work) toward such problems, they can be subject to the effect of social and historical beliefs related to disability and may, without realizing it, contribute to the perception of disabled people as ill, weak, incomplete and in need of care.

This attitude, in turn, harms the relationship between the counselor/tutor and families of disabled student-athletes. Moreover, most of the time, universities usually do not provide tutors and counselors with adequate training about athletes' specific needs and their perception of disabilities. This is serious and effectively amounts to not providing adequate tutorship and care to disabled student-athletes. For these reasons, counselors and tutors must reflect on their own beliefs and expectations about disability, know the types of disabilities, and communicate with their tutees effectively.

In their approach and interaction with disabled student-athletes, counselors and tutors must:

• use appropriate language to describe the student-athlete and their disability;

• identify personal and social barriers encountered by the disabled student-athlete;

• build a theoretical framework from which to understand disability adaptation from the student-athlete point of view;

• learn specific counseling and tutoring techniques to improve the effectiveness of the helping interview;

• always observe basic counseling and tutoring principles when working with disabled student-athletes.

Problem Statement

The helping relationship has four main phases. Madrid Soriano (2004) indicated that it is essential to note that it is difficult to define the exact moment when one phase ends and the next begins. Moreover, not all phases occur in a helping relationship. There may be blockages on one of the parties involved. The four phases which we present here shortly are articulated as follows.

1): this is when the first contact between the counselor and the person/client occurs, and the foundation of the relationship is laid. The counselor takes the initiative first by introducing themselves, communicating their responsibilities and agenda, and guiding the client by providing a framework. This is what is called "framing." The client is asked what they expect from the relationship, and the first specific goals are established.

2): in this phase, an assessment of the person's needs is made. The problems are assessed, and their limitations and possible causes are defined. From this stage onwards, the client actively participates. The specific objectives and methodology are also definitively agreed upon at this stage.

3): in this phase, the counselor encourages the client to achieve the agreed-upon goals regarding improving their health or resolving their situation, helping them to set their realistic expectations, assessing and encouraging them to take responsibility in the problem-solving process.

4): in this phase, the counselor-client relationship has ended. Emotions related to the end of the relationship are gathered, made explicit, shared, and the farewell happens. Goals achieved with the client are reviewed, and self-care is stimulated and encouraged. The main goal at this stage is to generalize what has been learned to transpose it to other life situations.

Based on these studies, there is no doubt that counselors and tutors dealing with disabled student-athletes may also use techniques that address managing complex emotions, redefining self-concept and personal identity, learning self-advocacy techniques, and integrating learned skills to become more confident. To better understand and help people with disabilities, counselors and tutors must:

• be aware that the negative experiences expressed about disability are real;
• always consider the effects that labels may have on their student-athletes;
• treating their student-athletes as human beings rather than as disabled;
• have an awareness of their attitudes and biases that can affect the helping relationship and the effectiveness of counseling and tutoring;
• be aware of how people with student-athletes describe themselves;
• respect the fact that student-athletes know their bodies;
• acquire the training and preparation necessary to serve as a counselor and tutor with student-athletes effectively;
• always pay attention to the abilities and strengths of student-athletes by always incorporating them into the helping strategies provided by counseling and tutoring;
• recognize the fact that most student-athletes do not live their lives focusing only on their disability and limitations (no doubt sport is an effective means to help them focus on other abilities, skills, and competencies);
• identify counseling and tutoring interview topics that make them uncomfortable;
• be open to the shared experiences within the helping relationship gained through counseling.

Research Questions

Also, several techniques can be offered to improve the effectiveness of counseling for people with disabilities. These techniques and strategies aim to focus on changing a person's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours concerning themselves and others. Some approaches have been studied empirically and have been shown to reduce negative thoughts and emotions (i.e., forgiveness and self-pity). Therefore, they have been referred to as essential skills for living well with a disability (i.e., resilience, self-advocacy, self-esteem, life skills).

These approaches aim to change the way people think, feel, or act in situations related to their disability. Forgiveness, self-compassion, and resilience are three constructs that have been empirically studied. More specifically, forgiveness and self-compassion have been shown to reduce negative emotions and improve a person's overall well-being (Neff, 2011). Both constructs and approaches have much relevance to the lives of people with disabilities because of the high number of negative experiences and treatments these people face. Resilience is a skill that has much relevance to the needs and problems of people with disabilities. Forgiveness, resilience, and self-compassion can be used to show clients with disabilities how to overcome, adapt, and accept their selves about their disability by coming to a state of well-being (Nierenberg et al., 2016).

Based on these premises, we wondered whether it was possible to build an authentic relationship that could go beyond the stereotypes and misunderstanding of disability by taking inspiration from Carl Rogers' model of humanistic communication model; that is to say, according to the Rogerian dialogic perspective on counseling and tutoring.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of our study was to review the existing scientific literature on counseling for disabled student-athletes in universities and better define the key elements which allow the development of a more effective dialogue between tutor/counselor and the student-athlete within the context of an authentic helping relationship.

Research Methods

We conducted a case study (based on three focus groups) with some disabled student-athletes we interviewed to understand these issues better. The sample of our research was composed of 9 individuals taken from the Universities whose researchers participated in this study). We transcribed the interviews, analysed the qualitative data collected, and processed them using qualitative analysis software (Voyant Tools). Through an interpretation of words frequency, the analysis allowed us to identify the needs of disabled student-athletes regarding the quality of communication between them and their tutors in tutoring them and in the helping relationship.

Findings

From the study we have conducted, it has emerged the importance for the counselor and the tutor to be open and prepared to listen to the disabled student-athlete. The analysis conducted through the text analysis has stressed the specific needs expressed by student-athletes regarding the communication and tutoring desirable model with their tutors and counselors. Also, what has emerged from the analysis is that not only the map of needs seen as priorities by student-athletes develops according to Maslow's theory of motivation and personality (1970), but also that only a dialogue developed in an authentically Rogerian perspective can make effective and make more human a tutorship relationship.

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Conclusion

Answering the ten questions we have indicated can be helpful for the counselor and the tutor both in the preparatory phase and in the live dialogue with the disabled student-athletes. It is undoubtedly a complex exercise that implies the acceptance of a challenge. This challenge is the very essence of counseling and tutoring disabled student-athletes in the university. It consists of dealing with a possible transformation that concerns the student-athlete and the counselor/tutor themselves as a person and as a helping relationship professional, independently of the wealth of knowledge, methodologies, and techniques they face the helping relationship.

Disability is an experience usually not understood in its fullness by most people who do not experience it, including counselors and tutors, who do not frequently work with this type of student in schools and Universities. To change this trend, counselors and tutors need to open themselves up to the possibility of learning about and deepening their understanding of disability by listening deeply to the voices of disabled student-athletes, understanding their perspective on the disability itself. This disability, however, must be approached by the counselor and tutor in itself, without building models of comparison and always taking into account that every human being is what he or she is (i.e., is always originally a "self" that is never the same as "another") thanks to the particular way in which they reveal themselves in the world.

This mode is made possible because each person has a difference within himself/herself that builds his/her identity and differentiates him/her from others. Diversity is a resource for the science of counseling and tutoring because it provides counselors and tutors with an opportunity to learn and train themselves. It can be, in fact, an opportunity for enrichment since, through confrontation with diversity, counselors and tutors can broaden their horizons of meaning, enhance their ability to interpret the world, and, therefore, also their intelligence. The tutor and counselor working in schools and Universities can benefit the school and the university itself, which, through teachers, can improve the quality of teaching. Disability - or rather, the disabilities of student-athletes - in fact, at first appearing to be an obstacle to learning and playing the sport, later invites tutors and counselors to put themselves entirely at stake, formulating specific intervention strategies. Disability at school and university activates a series of cognitive and intervention strategies that can be seen as actual permanent problem-solving actions that continuously improve overall teaching quality (Zagelbaum, 2014).

Moreover, the encounter with disabled student-athletes by a counselor or a tutor stimulates in them the socio-cognitive conflict that, in turn, can generate a higher level of knowledge. A problem that goes beyond the usual mental strategies of a person can often generate the organization or reorganization of new and more effective learning strategies that, through processing, lead the subject to advancement in a higher stage of knowledge (Sánchez Pato et al., 2017).

Counseling and tutoring aim to enhance the originality of the exceptionality of the experience of disability in student-athletes. The effort to understand different abilities/diversity will benefit not only the disabled student-athletes but also counselors and tutors, who will thus be able to grow from a human and professional point of view, and the helping relationship itself as a practice of improving the human condition aimed at promoting the well-being and integration of people

Acknowledgments

This study has been developed within the research activities of Erasmus+ Project PARA-LIMITS -Dual Career of Student-Athletes with Disabilities as a Tool for Social Inclusion (622213-EPP-1-2020-1-ES-SPO-SCP).

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