The relationship between message frequency and session evaluation in SNS counseling: An examination of listening attitudes through role-playing

As communication tools have shifted to Social Networking Services (SNS) in recent years, especially among the younger generation, the use of text-based online counseling services is spreading rapidly in Japan. With this shift, SNS counseling is now mainly provided by temporarily trained paraprofessionals and non-professionals under the supervision of more experienced professionals, and there is an urgent need to train counselors with high levels of expertise. However, there is a great lack of basic research in Japan, and empirical findings have not yet been obtained on even rough indicators that distinguish highly specialized counseling from non-specialized counseling. In this study, therefore, we conducted a role-play survey of SNS counseling and examined how the counselor's attitude of “listening” appears, using message volume and session evaluations as analytical indices. The results of this analysis revealed that there were two main features of the “listening” attitude in SNS counseling. In SNS counseling, counselors need to talk more than in face-to-face counseling to understand the situation and to clearly express empathy, while providing a place where the client can talk freely and a lot. The SNS counselors are expected to take a seemingly contradictory, therefore difficult, way of being. It can be said that although the basic essence of “listening” attitude is the same between SNS consultation and face-to-face psychotherapy, the actual expression of this attitude is different, and the suggestion of this point is probably the most significant of this study.