The Connection between Skilled Counseling and Client's Heart Rate Variability

Abstract

In this study, we focused on investigating the connection between the activity of a client's autonomic nervous system (ANS) and a counselor's score on the skilled verbal responding scale (SVRS). Our main aim was to explore the connection between the client's emotions and the skill level of the counselor. We examined the heart rate variability (HRV) of 10 clients and the SVRS scores of 10 counselors. The HRV of the clients was measured before and after the counseling session. The HRV and SVRS results showed that the scores of counselors on the SVRS were correlated with the clients’ ANS response. High SVRS scores were clearly connected with increased parasympathetic activity and decreased sympathetic activity in the clients. We also extracted two critical cases from the data for exploring the differences in conversational content between the two cases: 1. a case, where the counselor had a high SVRS score and the client had increased parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and decreased sympathetic nervous system (SNS)activity; 2. a case, where the counselor had a low SVRS score and the client had decreased PNS and increased SNS activity.