The Educational Counseling for Disabled Student-Athletes and the Rogerian Perspective

The helping relationship represents the main scenario in which the educational counselor and tutor act to manage and successfully develop the dialogue with the disabled student-athlete in the university and the school. The dialogue occurring in this relation becomes a "helping interview." One of the prominent scholars who studied the helping interview in the framework of the helping relationship was the father of humanistic psychology, Carl Rogers. The helping interview is challenging to accomplish because it needs a specific preparatory exercise. The helping interview is always influenced by the type of subjects it is aimed at and its context. Currently, there are few studies on the topic of educational counseling for disabled college student-athletes. The purpose of our study is to review the existing scientific literature on counseling for disabled student-athletes in universities and to explore the issues involved. To better understand these issues, we conducted a case study with some disabled student-athletes we interviewed. We transcribed the interviews, analysed the qualitative data collected, and processed them using qualitative analysis software. The analysis allowed us to identify, through the drawing of a conceptual map, the needs of student-athletes. Moreover, it has allowed us to draw up a list of specific questions that, in light of the Rogerian dialogic approach to helping relationships, can be used by a counselor for the educational counseling of student-athletes both in the university and school.