A Content Analysis of Recent Qualitative Child and Adolescent Counseling Research and Recommendations for Innovative Approaches

ABSTRACT

Children and adolescents communicate differently than adults and require use of creative, behavior, and play-based interventions in the counseling process. However, these strategies are not as often utilized to capture the experiences of children and adolescents in counseling-related qualitative research studies. Utilizing content analysis, we examined qualitative research studies published in counseling journals in the last six years to identify contributions, gaps, and opportunities for growth in child and adolescent qualitative research. Based on the results, we provide recommendations for conducting qualitative research using innovative adaptations to represent the voices of children and adolescents in developmentally meaningful ways.

KEYWORDS:

• child counseling
• adolescent counseling
• qualitative research
• content analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23727810.2024.2357520.