CHANGES IN LOW FLOURISHING AFTER COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING AMONG ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

Adolescent flourishing is an important indicator of positive mental health, yet school counseling research has more often focused on reducing symptoms than on strengthening positive functioning. This pre-experimental study examined changes in low-flourishing severity after Cognitive Behavior Therapy-based individual counseling using cognitive restructuring. Sixty-six grade XI students were screened, and seven students identified as having low flourishing participated in a one-group pretest-posttest intervention consisting of four individual counseling meetings. Questionnaire and structured observation data were summarized descriptively, and paired pretest-posttest scores were evaluated with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The mean low-flourishing severity score declined from 123.1 at pretest to 85.4 at posttest, representing a descriptive reduction of approximately 30.6%. All participants moved from high or very high severity categories at pretest to medium or low categories at posttest. The retained statistical output reported Z = -2.731 with an asymptotic significance displayed as 0.000 (conventionally reported as p < .001), although an exact p value could not be verified from the available paired data. These findings provide preliminary evidence that cognitive restructuring delivered through individual counseling was associated with improved flourishing-related functioning. Because the study involved only seven participants and no control group, the results should not be interpreted as definitive causal evidence.