Relationship beliefs of candidate psychological counselors: A review in the context of childhood traumas and difficulties in emotion regulation

The aim of the study is to examine the psychological counselor candidates' relationship beliefs in terms of childhood trauma and difficulties in emotion regulation. Whether the psychological counselor candidates' beliefs in relationship, childhood trauma and emotion regulation disability differentiate according to the several socio-demographics features (gender, age, class level, number of siblings, birth order, mother's education level, father's education level, type of family, socio-economic level of the family, perceived parents' attitude) were examined. The sample group of the study consists of 395 psychological counselor candidates, including 311 (78.7 %) female and 84 (21.3 %) male, studying in public and private universities. As data collection tool, Development of the Relationship Beliefs Questionnaire; Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-Brief Form (DERS-16) were used. In addition, Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher was used to examine the socio-demographic features of the participants. According to the results of the study, it has been found that the relationship beliefs differ according to the father's education level while they do not differ according to the socio-demographic features; that the childhood trauma scores differ according to the gender variable in physical abuse sub-dimension and they differ according to the variable of number of siblings in total trauma, emotional abuse, physical abuse and emotional neglect sub-dimensions. They also differ according to the variable of birth order in total trauma scores and emotional abuse scores. Furthermore they also differ according to the father's education level in physical abuse sub-dimension and in favor of the ones whose education level is primary school between the primary school and university; that the socio-economic level differs in all sub-dimensions except for sexual abuse and in favor of low socio-economic status between low and high socio-economic status, and that it differs according to the variable parent's attitude in all sub-dimensions except for sexual abuse, that the difficulty in emotion regulation differs according to the variable of mother's educational level in total score and disapproval sub-dimensions, and it differs according to the parent's education level in disapproval and clearance sub-dimensions, and it differs according to the variable of socio-economic status in objectives sub-dimensions, and according to the parent's attitude in total trauma and disapproval, strategies and impulse sub-dimensions whereas it does not differ according to the family type. It has been concluded that the emotional abuse, physical abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect and sexual abuse sub-dimensions regarding the psychological counselor candidates' childhood trauma explained total variances of the relationship beliefs and that the emotional neglect and physical neglect sub-dimensions addressed the relationship beliefs as 'significant'. It has been noted that there is significant positive relationship between childhood traumas and the difficulty in emotion regulation total scale and sub-dimension scores, and relationship beliefs and difficulty in emotion regulation total scale. It has been stated that the disapproval, clearness, objectives, strategies and impulse sub-dimensions explained the variance in relationship beliefs total scores, and that the strategies and impulse sub-dimensions noted relationship beliefs as significant.