” Stress less – live more” : A qualitative study about school counselor’s way to help students and pupils

The purpose of the study was partly to investigate the experiences of school counselors the factors that may be behind young people's stress (16-25 years) and partly to explore school counselors' perceptions of what tools are needed to reduce young people's stress. All school counselors participated in the study working at the student health care in Sweden. The study is based on twelve qualitative interviews with school counselors in Sweden. The theoretical frameworks used are tacit knowledge, work alliance, role theory and professional theory. The results showed that many different factors contributed to young people's stress, for example too little sleep, inactivity and large examinations. It became clear that the school counselors had similar opinions about what was behind young people's stress. Furthermore, it became clear that school counselors use different tools to reduce young people's stress. These tools consisted of getting students to think positively, to have a balance between leisure time, school and work, and to have time for recovery