PUSPAGA Counselors’ Emotional Experiences in Strengthening Narrative Counseling Competence for Disrupted Families in Malang City: A Phenomenological Study
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Abstract
This study explores the emotional experiences of PUSPAGA counselors in developing narrative counseling competence for supporting families experiencing disruption in Malang City, Indonesia. Family disruption, encompassing divorce, persistent marital conflict, unsafe caregiving, domestic violence, and emotional neglect, presents complex psychosocial challenges. A preliminary needs assessment with Dinas Sosial P3AP2KB Kota Malang identified counselors’ difficulties in managing emotionally sensitive cases while maintaining empathy, professional boundaries, and cultural responsiveness. Using a qualitative phenomenological design, the study analyzed a transcript of a narrative counseling competency development discussion involving three facilitators and three PUSPAGA counselors. Analysis involved repeated reading, identification of significant statements, formulation of meaning units, and construction of experiential themes. Six themes emerged: emotional involvement in family counseling; boundaries between empathy and sympathy; emotional transfer and countertransference; nondirective support for client decision-making; narrative listening and meaning reconstruction; and emotional recovery and session boundaries. Findings suggest that narrative counseling competence extends beyond questioning, summarizing, and reframing to include sustained empathic presence without emotional overidentification with clients’ distress. Counselors described the importance of recognizing emotional responses, supporting clients’ autonomy, and establishing boundaries to maintain professional effectiveness. The study underscores the need for structured PUSPAGA training addressing empathy regulation, awareness of emotional transfer, responses to emotionally intense situations, session boundaries, and counselor self-care. It contributes to community-based family counseling by foregrounding emotional and reflective dimensions of professional competence. Further research should examine counseling practice and supervision and explore culturally grounded media, including Topeng Malangan, as resources for reconstructing meaning, identity, and hope among affected families.
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