Observing school psychological counselors and psychological counselors candidates automatic negative thoughts

The main purpose of the study was to investigate negative automatic thoughts of school psychological counselors and psychological counselor candidates. Another purpose of this study was to find out whether there are significant differences between several variables like gender, working group, institution that they want to work in future, working duration at job and perception about their job. The sample consists of two groups. First group was 163 women and 93 men who were working in center counties of Adana in 2016-2017. Second group was 145 women and 74 men who were 3rd and 4th grade students from department of psychological counseling and guidance at Çukurova University. Data was collected through Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Revised (ATQ-R ) and a demographic information form . For the analysis of continuous variable in normal distribution, independent sample t test or one-way variance were analyzed. For the analysis of continuous variable that does not show normal distribution, Mann Whitney U or Kruskall Wallis tests were analyzed. For the analysis of categorical variable chi-square test was used. In the results; it is showned that in the subscales of psychological counselor candidate' negative automatic thoughts (being self-centered, puzzlement and escape behavior, personal dissonance, loneliness, being hopeless for himself/herself) and total school psychological counselors have more negative automatic thoughts. The women have higher scores than men in negative automatic thoughts No significant difference was observed in subscales and mean of total score in psychological counselor candidates' negative automatic thoughts in terms of gender and the institution that they want to work. It was found that the counselors who have 16 years working experience have less negative automatic thoughts. It was showned that the mean scores of psychological counselors who perceive themselves as a psychological counselor were significantly higher than psychological counselors who perceive themselves as a guidance counselor. Keywords: Cognitive behavioral therapy, Negative Automatic Thoughts, Psychological Counselor, Psychological Counselor Candidate