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Mediated counseling services are becoming more and more common, thanks to the advance and availability of ICTs. The research on motivations for choosing such a service over a face-to-face one is a relatively new field of research and previous studies identified the most common motivations as narrated by clients in ex-post interviews. The present study aims to contribute to this field of research by identifying and describing how these motivations are directly enacted within the conversations between the counseling professional and the client. Twentyone WhatsApp conversations were analyzed using Qualitative Content Analysis. Results show that motivations expressed ex-post by young people found in previous research (e.g. privacy and autonomy, control over the counseling process, anonymity, accessibility of text counseling) are present in the conversations, but are more complex and nuanced in natural discursive productions. The article also presents the pragmatic implications of these occurrences in the practice of mediated counseling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of counseling sessions, counselors use summaries/restatements (also called formulations) of clients’ words. Online counseling literature advises counselors to use formulations more frequently than in spoken counseling. This article is based on a comparative research project on Dutch telephone and chat counseling. It appeared that the counselors used formulations in the early phase of the chat sessions, while they rarely did on the telephone. This article focuses on the formulations used in the initial phase of chat sessions to explore how they are embedded in the interaction and what they achieve. The data consist of 49 web-based chat sessions about alcohol and/or drugs; in 14 sessions the counselors used a formulation in the initial phase of the session. Two types of formulations were found, proposing two alternative activities as the current focus of the interaction: requesting and giving information (7 out of 14) or problem discussion (7 out of 14). While the first type solves equivocal help questions, the second explores if the client would like to disclose more about the problem implied in the question. The findings may be used to reflect on, and scrutinize the general recommendation to use formulations in online counseling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• For hidden youth, online counseling achieves better outcomes than the offline one. • For hidden youth, integrated counseling achieves the best service outcomes. • Online counseling and offline counseling have unique, complementary advantages. The emergence of the Internet has given rise to the continuous development of online counseling since the 1970s. Despite the increasing popularity of online counseling in the globe currently, whether the advantages of online counseling surpasses that of offline counseling is still in controversy. Against this backdrop, this study seeks to compare between online, offline, and integrated counseling (i.e., the combined use of online and offline counseling) in therapeutic outcomes, so as to shed light on the significance of largely developing online counseling in youth contexts in Hong Kong. Targeting 502 hidden youth in Hong Kong who were aged 12–24 as participants, this study adopted a mixed method in doing the comparative analysis of service outcomes in terms of quality of life and sense of well-being. Quantitative results showed that integrated counseling was perceived as achieving the best outcomes among all the three forms of counseling, while online counseling was better than offline counseling. Explained by qualitative analyses, online and offline counseling had their unique advantages which were complementary to each other: While online counseling dealt with individual, psychological issues more effectively, offline counseling helped provide more substantial support in terms of real-time company and tangible resources. The implication is that online counseling has a potential value to be extensively developed in Hong Kong, either as an alternative to offline counseling or being integrated with offline counseling to maximize the service outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]