When push comes to shove, supporting students in our schools is a team effort. Our students, regardless of challenges they face in their academic or personal lives, benefit from the care we can offer them. In this series, we have explored ways to support and intervene with students experiencing mood and personality related challenges. Whether we are school counsellors, administrators, teachers, or support staff, we contribute to our student’s well-being when we interact in ways which support them. This series of articles aims to equip us and guide our reflection in offering our students informed support. We have discussed a bit of theory, and a bit of practice. In part three, I hope to elaborate more on the value of professional support, and some of the go-to interventions I use.
In the fourth and final part, we focus more on finding ways to provide effective counselling support to students experiencing personality and mood challenges without depending solely on a diagnosis. Through this process, we will also reflect on how all school staff and educational leaders can benefit and incorporate this information into their own practices. This final installment will examine strategies to support students experiencing personality and mood-related challenges within the context of career counselling. Additionally, I will outline interventions I use in my career counselling work with high school students encountering these difficulties before bringing this article and series to a close.
Beyond the Diagnosis: Part three of four
Supportive Presence
If there is one lesson school counselling has taught me, it is that we must never underestimate the power of our presence when working with students. I don’t mean power in an authoritarian or “were the boss” sort of way, I mean power as in fruitful or impactful. Regardless of our role in our schools, we must remember that being a presence of safety is necessary for our students. Our presence is supportive when we allow ourselves to be human, authentic, compassionate, all while remaining professional and using boundaries. In other words, never underestimate the power of our presence as a professional support during student suffering. I think the word suffering is important here. It is so easy to fall into the trap when working with personality and mood related challenged students to label behaviors as mere attention seeking, or avoidance – especially if we don’t work directly with the student regularly and rely on third party information exclusively. How we speak, act, and portray ourselves matters when communicating safety to students struggling with mood or any mental health challenges.1 For example, some attention and avoidance behaviors are natural in adolescents and children. Intervening with patience, boundaries and structure for these students is key in those moments. We know from attachment theory that in children and adolescents, attachment and having stable relationships are essential.2 Sometimes students who perceive or have a lack of secure attachment may turn to self-coping to try and stabilize their internal turmoil and suffering – which can sometimes take the form of attention seeking and avoidance behaviors.3 Thus, students need experiences of stable presence in their lives, especially when they are experiencing symptoms related to personality and mood challenges which can be confusing and scary for them. In these moments, I find it crucial that regardless of my interventions, I need to focus on being a calm and secure presence when intervening with students, especially those who are experiencing personality and mood challenges. By intentionally providing a form of secure attachment through our presence, it is possible to deliver evidence-based support without relying solely on a diagnosis.
Trauma and culturally informed support
Supporting students with personality and mood challenges is also about recognizing the need for trauma and culturally informed care. We know that traumatic experience or adverse childhood experiences (ACES) can turn a students life upside down and inside out.4 The impact of traumatic experience can have drastic effects on children and adolescents which contribute to personality and mood related challenges.5 This means that students facing mood and personality challenges don’t just need school counselling services, they need trauma informed care throughout their school experience. Thus, keeping this in mind when organizing training, staffing, and other student supports is key from a school administration point of view.
Culturally informed support is also essential for students with personality or mood challenges. Understanding a student’s background—such as community, culture, and home life—helps identify where strategies or external support may be needed.6 Each student has a personal context and experience which has led them to where they are when they walk into our office or into our school. Gaining an understanding of students’ cultural perspectives, values, beliefs, and related contextual factors (while not prying to much or coming across like an interrogator) helps establish a baseline for effective intervention. This is particularly important when working with students who demonstrate mood swings, impulsive actions, emotional dysregulation, or other behaviors associated with personality and mood challenges. Knowing our student’s culture and context help us in offering professional support and intervention.
Interventions
In earlier articles for this series, I discussed the principles underlying my intervention process for identifying student needs, which are summarized by the acronym BEDS. Feel free to review these earlier discussions if you have not already done so. While BEDS serves as a foundation for my overall approach with students experiencing personality and mood challenges, I have also identified several specific interventions that consistently enhance the quality of care I provide. In this article, I outline four general interventions that I frequently employ.
- Two sides to a coin: With this intervention, I like to use a coin as a metaphor and education around mindset and developing psychological flexibility.7 When the student only sees life from their perspective, it can lead to tensions at school. Helping students with personality and mood issues to see another perspective, to fact check, to see the “other side of the coin” can be a simple way to help them develop mental skills which can prevent explosions or unwanted behavior at school.
- Notice the needles: It is important to identify even the smallest opportunities or positive changes when supporting students facing personality and mood-related challenges. The metaphor of “finding needles in a haystack” serves as a reminder that, despite apparent setbacks, subtle indicators of progress often exist. Recognising and acknowledging these incremental improvements—regardless of whether they align with initial goals—can highlight meaningful growth in students.
- Carefrontation: In my study of counselling skills, I discovered that confrontation need not be devoid of compassion or excessively intense. The concept of carefrontation integrates empathetic understanding with direct communication, enabling the counsellor to address the necessary truths while maintaining empathy and safeguarding the therapeutic relationship.8 This intervention has proven essential in my work with students experiencing challenges related to personality and mood.
- Sifting: Students experiencing mood or personality challenges may often feel overwhelmed, with their thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations intertwined in a complex manner that can impede coping. The process of sifting entails deliberately distinguishing between one’s thoughts, feelings, and bodily responses. Once this separation is achieved, reviewing specific difficult experiences and breaking them down into smaller, chronological segments can greatly enhance the student’s understanding of their situation. This approach also enables school counsellors to identify where targeted management strategies or skill-building interventions may be most beneficial to prevent future concerns.
Conclusion
In this article, our third instalment of beyond the diagnosis, we explored some interventions which can help support students with personality and mood related challenges while they are on the waiting list for other services. For leaders in education, what is essential is to realize that there is more going on with our personality and mood challenged students than meets they eye, and that ensuring safe and adequate interactions and resources for these students throughout their school journey is of the utmost importance. While past articles focused on general approaches to intervening with students facing personality and mood related difficulties, in this article we explored four of my go-to interventions to offer professional care to these students while they are on the waiting list. In our final article of this series, I hope to explore more interventions which are specifically intended to address students facing mood and personality challenges in career counselling.
References
Baruth, Leroy G., and M. Lee Manning. 2016. Multicultural Counseling And Psychotherapy: A Lifespan Approach. Edited by 6th ed. New York, NY: Routledge.
Heller, Diane Poole. 2023. “Attachment for Everyone.” Trauma solutions web site. Accessed 08 12, 2025. https://traumasolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/Trauma-Solutions-Attachment-for-Everyone_022023.pdf.
McKay, Matthew, Patrick Fanning, and Patricia Zurita Ona. 2011. Mind and Emotions: A Universal Treatment for Emotional Disorders. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
Nesbit Sbanotto, Elisabeth A., Heather Davediuk Gingrich, and Fred C. Gingrich. 2016. Skills for Effective Counseling: A Faith-Based Integration. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Satir, Virginia. 1988. The New Peoplemaking. Mountain View, California: Science and Behavior Books, Inc.
Wright, H. Norman. 2014. The Complete Guide to Chrisis & Trauma Counseling: What to do and Say When it Matters Most! Reprint. Bloomington, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers.
1(Satir, 1988; Baruth and Manning, 2016).
2(Heller, 2023)
3(Heller, 2023)
4(Wright, 2014)
5(Wright, 2014)
6(Baruth and Manning, 2016)
7(McKay et al., 2011)
8(Nesbit, 2016)
Beyond the Diagnosis: Part four of four
Not an Expert
When I first started working in the school counselling field, I struggled to navigate the career counselling side of our work. Most of my previous experience was in mental health and spiritual care settings, so career counselling was not a task which came naturally to me at first. Through supervision, consultations, and ongoing training, I am comfortable with the career-development aspect of the school counselling role. Like Redekopp & Huston, I now see that career counselling and development have a significant impact on student mental health and their ability to develop resilience and the skills to face their challenges – whether or not they are clinically diagnosed.1 This means that our students facing personality and mood-related challenges also merit and need our career counselling interventions to support recovery and school success. It can be easy to focus on the mental health-related challenges to the point of forgetting we do need to support our students’ career development as well as their well-being and mental health.
Starting Career Conversations Early
One thing I have noticed when working with students who face personality and mood challenges is the need to start career development conversations early. At times, I prioritize assisting students through immediate challenges or crises, postponing career-related discussions until the situation stabilizes. However, I have observed that this approach can occasionally limit opportunities for meaningful career development conversations. As pointed out by Vernon G. Zunker, having a holistic view of the person leads us to an integrated understanding of counselling, and not separating our work into two entities of personal vs. career counselling.2 Since reading Zunker, I try to integrate career-related questions and reflections early on in my work with students’ – especially those facing personality or mood challenges. I routinely incorporate these career-related conversations when helping students reflect on the long-term impacts of their challenges, when helping to create an action plan, or simply when coming to a lull in the conversation. My aim isn’t to demand concrete decisions or put pressure on the student; rather, it’s to encourage early reflection on career development and explore ways to incorporate this into their individual counselling support. By starting this process early (such as a year or two ahead of their last year of high school), it allows students to make changes with less stress and pressure to decide, which can reduce their sense of being overwhelmed. In other words, we are allowing them to look at career development not as another big hurdle to jump, but rather as a part of their overall self-discovery, recovery, and journey to overall school success.
Creating Space
I am a profound believer in the power of giving students a safe psychological space in our school counselling practices and in our schools. I believe this safe space also applies to the work of career counselling. In the words of Virginia Satir, “An adolescent’s psychological context needs to be able to accommodate mood swings, seemingly irrational ideas, occasional bizarre behaviour, new vocabulary, and awkward performances. Each or all of these arise as adolescents play with their power, their autonomy, and their dependence and independence.”3 For me, career counselling involves creating a space where our students can make decisions, change their minds, or make mistakes on applications and learn from them. Students facing mood and personality-related challenges also need this same space, especially if their decisions are connected to experiences such as strong emotions, complex social and cultural contexts, traumatic experiences or overthinking. When we make a conscious effort to create this space for students in our counselling offices, I believe we are offering an essential element in effective student care and career development. This also means that in our schools, efforts to encourage career development outside of the school counselling office can also contribute when they keep this principle of creating space in mind.
Interventions
In previous articles in this series, I shared some general and specific interventions to support students facing personality and mood-related challenges. This article is no different. In supporting these students during career development discussions and activities, I find it helpful to introduce the following three interventions alongside those we’ve already discussed. Though I use these interventions in career counselling, I feel like they can be helpful for school staff in other contexts as well. For example, discussing students’ dreams to try and get to know them a bit more as a school principal can help build trust and help identify pathways of support for that student at school.
- Yes and No: One strategy I use involves educating students that agreeing to one choice means they are often denying another – this is what I call the “yes and no” intervention. By using this education as a threshold for career reflection, students become more aware of both what they’re choosing and what they are leaving behind. Framing the conversation through this intervention can also provide us with an opportunity to address various feelings, thoughts, and fears should they arise.
- Practical support: I’ve often been surprised by how many of my students freeze when they’re faced with tasks that technology can’t do for them – like filling out college applications or writing resumes – even though we have so many helpful tools at our disposal. In my role as an educational counsellor, I focus on guiding students through these application processes without doing the work for them. I’ve also learned not to assume that all students already know how to tackle these challenges. As Norman Wright reminds us, “Remember that insight, in and of itself, is not sufficient. Teens need to do something about the symptoms and the direction of their life. You may become frustrated in counseling adolescents, because you may be putting adult expectations for change on people who are not yet adults.”[4] Thus, practical support as an intervention not only helps my students build confidence and independence but also encourages them to take meaningful action toward their goals. For school leaders, keeping this practical support need in mind can be helpful when structuring and organizing student support services (including school counselling services).
- The Dream: I often ask students, “What’s your career dream?” or “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” Open-ended questions like these help me connect with students who struggle with personality or mood challenges during career counselling. Hearing their dreams lets us set goals collaboratively, break the dream down into manageable steps, apply a “yes and no” intervention, and prevent the students from getting stuck in overthinking or feeling overwhelmed.
Conclusion
In this four-part series, we have explored how to respond to the needs of our students’ surrounding personality and mood challenges. We reviewed practical theories and identified interventions to enhance our awareness and ability to support these students. By starting early and providing opportunities for students to navigate their growth into adulthood – including managing challenges related to personality and mood – I believe we can make meaningful progress in assisting students through career and personal challenges at school. Ultimately, I hope that this article and collection of reflections encourage us to find creative ways to assist students dealing with personality and mood issues – not just while they’re on a waitlist – but by responding to their individual needs and giving them every chance to thrive both academically and personally.
References
Redekopp, Dave E, and Michael Huston. 2020. Strengthening Mental Health Through Effective Career Development; A Practitioner’s Guide. Toronto: CERIC Foundation House.
Satir, Virginia. 1988. The New Peoplemaking. Mountain View, California: Science and Behavior Books, Inc.
Wright, H. Norman. 2014. The Complete Guide to Chrisis & Trauma Counseling: What to do and Say When it Matters Most! Reprint. Bloomington, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers.
Zunker, Vernon G. 2016. Career Counseling: A Holistic Approach. 9th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
1(Redekopp and Huston 2020)
2(Zunker 2016stabilizescareer-relatedstabilizes)
3(Satir 1988, 311)
4(Wright 2014)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Justin Bertrand is a counsellor in academic training at the high school level in Quebec, with over a decade of counselling experience across diverse settings. He holds a Master of Divinity and is currently a candidate for the MA in Counselling and Spiritual Care at McMaster Divinity College.
