In this four-part series, I aim to explore a need-based approach for offering care to students experiencing mood or personality challenges while they are on the waiting list.
When push comes to shove, school counselling is about offering professional support and intervention to students. These 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. We have discussed a bit of theory, and a bit of practice. In this third article, I hope to elaborate more on the value of professional support, and some of my go-to interventions I use when working with students facing personality and mood related difficulties.
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 fruitful or impactful. Some students attend school even when experiencing low mood or strong emotions, as they are aware they may encounter their school counsellor in the hallways or have a scheduled appointment. Our presence is supportive, especially 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 challenges to label behaviors as mere attention seeking, or avoidance. 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.1 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.2 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 induce fear and isolation. 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.3 The impact of traumatic experience can have drastic effects on children and adolescents which contribute to personality and mood related challenges.4 While it is not often our role as school counsellors to provide counselling or therapy to heal trauma, it is our role to provide students a safe and trauma informed approach which prevents a worsening of that students recovery.
Culturally informed support is 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.5 Each student has a personal context and experience which has led them to where they are when they walk into our office. Gaining an understanding of students’ cultural perspectives, values, beliefs, and related contextual factors 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.6 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: As a school counsellor, it is essential 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.7 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. As school counsellors, our role is to be a professional, trauma and culturally informed support for our students, offering in some ways a secure relationship and attachments in
student lives. 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.
1, 2 (Heller 2023)
3,4 (Wright 2014)
5 (Baruth and Manning 2016)
6 (McKay, Fanning and Ona 2011)
7 (Nesbit Sbanotto 2016)
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.
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
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.
