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Counseling students practiced a centering meditation every morning and evening for 25 days. The authors observed the bi-daily outcomes in interpersonal and social well-being and analyzed the observations through a pilot study using time series analysis. The findings were a positive trend in the data for interpersonal and social well-being.

Today's youth face multifaceted challenges in a time when society is more aware of the consequences of unhealthy decision-making. In this study, we tested the effectiveness of an emerging intervention, GPS for SUCCESS, a classroom-based 5-week program that helps students build their purpose in life while securing a commitment to achieve it. We employed a quasi-experimental study that included a nonrandom assignment to a treatment and comparison group. Findings indicated that the treatment group had statistically significant higher posttest scores on measures of meaning in life and personal growth initiative when compared to the comparison group and while controlling for their pretest scores. We discuss these findings and their implications for theory, practice, and future research.

Our study explored the impact of a 4-week, daily lovingkindness meditation practice on students' levels of hope and emotional intelligence. Our findings indicated no statistically significant difference between treatment and waitlist control groups in students' reported levels of hope and emotional intelligence. However, when students' frequency of practice was included in the model, the results showed that the between-subjects effects were significant. We offer implications for school counseling practice and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical element of a counselor's work is their ability to make sound decisions when facing ethical and legal issues. Yet, limited measures exist to understand actions/processes used to inform ethical and legal decision-making in counseling. We developed and tested the Frequency of Ethical and Legal Issues in Counseling Scale (FELICS), a measure to capture data on the rate counselors face ethical and legal issues. A sample of 369 counselors completed the FELICS. Findings from an exploratory factor analysis provided initial evidence for the validity and reliability of the measure. We discuss the implications of our findings and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional intelligence-based leadership training may be beneficial for law enforcement in their personal and professional development. The goal of this study was to qualitatively explore the experiences participants reported as a result of the My Life My Power (MLMP) Tactical Leadership Training (TLT). The MLMP TLT is designed to incorporate emotional-intelligence and belief-intelligence constructs into training delivery of law enforcement professionals with the goal of increasing positive outcomes for law enforcement and the communities they serve. The researchers conducted interviews with seven participants who had completed the MLMP training as part of their professional development. The researchers coded emerging themes from the interviews, including experience-oriented themes and outcome-oriented themes. Evaluation of the MLMP program is provided based on participants' responses. The researchers offer implications for professional development programming for law enforcement working with students and juveniles in community and school settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we examined the ability of Self-Determination Theory's causality orientations to predict alcohol use and abstinence self-efficacy. We also provided suggestions for counselors supporting client and student autonomy in clinical practice. Objectives: This study sought to answer the following questions: (a) Does a person's causality orientation (autonomy, control, and impersonal) predict their alcohol use? (2) Does a person's causality orientation (autonomy, control, and impersonal) predict their temptation to use drugs and alcohol? (3) Does a person's causality orientation (autonomy, control, and impersonal) predict their confidence to use drugs and alcohol? Method: We utilized Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a crowdsourced online labor market approach to collect data from a community sample. Results: The results suggest heightened impersonal orientation was predictive of increased alcohol use and increased temptation to use while control orientation was also predictive of increased temptation. Higher autonomous orientation was predictive of increased confidence to not use while impersonal and controlled were not. Conclusion: This study's findings underline the importance of SDT in substance use prevention, initiation, and treatment, and open the door to more empowering interventions. Through the intentional use of SDT, individuals may feel more empowered to set and achieve goals, feel a greater sense of control in their lives, strengthening their overall autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]