Characteristics of Graduate Counseling Student Grief Experiences

Abstract

This study explored the incidence of grief and resulting effects experienced by graduate counseling students. A total of 157 students from three universities completed surveys about their grief experiences. The authors calculated descriptive statistics, as well as Kruskal–Wallis H tests and Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient, to identify relationships between variables. Results indicated that approximately 86% (n = 129) of students had experienced loss within their lifetime. Participants reported emotional, cognitive, physical, behavioral, interpersonal, and world assumption grief effects, with statistically significant relationships to both type of loss and reported closeness to the deceased. These findings provide new information on the specific and multidimensional grief effects these students experienced and offer practical insight into how grieving students can be best supported during their counseling training.