Abstract
In 2014, the Taiwan government approved the “Student Guidance and Counseling Act” commanding schools to increase number of counselors and according to the three stage structure of preventive counseling to establish a risk reduction guidance regime accessible to all students. This type of system differs from the previous practice in complexity of prevention, intervention and treatment of youth risk behavior. The research is concerned with the topic “Why Taiwanese society puts the topic of students’ mental health in the category of risk behavior and how the guidance regime treats the students’ health problems after classifying them as “normal/or abnormal”.” The analysis is divided into three main parts: the guidance regime risk governance, the helping profession of those who assist with the counseling and the emotional labor of the counselor. It scrutinizes the circumstances of the counselor’s work within the guidance regime. First, it describes the functioning of the three stages preventive counseling within the guidance regime and from the risk point of view investigates the categories of students that are classified as “at-risk”. Second, it discusses the topic how the counseling can become a helping profession and what is the content of this specialization, how the services provided to students differ from the specializations of a social worker, a psychologist, a psychiatrist and an educator. Finally, it examines how in a profession that specializes in treating personal emotions, the counselors use the techniques for expressing feelings and emotions and based on each case offer counseling that helps students to comply with standards of “psychical and physical health”. Several data collection methods have been used in this research, including textual analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviewing. The first step of the research focused on the analysis of the counseling history of particular school, the manuals used by the counselors, guidebooks issued by the Ministry of Education etc. The study examines how these materials define “at-risk students” and what kind of intervention strategies these materials propose. The textual analysis of these materials is further compared and extended by the analysis concerning the youth incidents reports. Furthermore, the researcher selected one counseling office at secondary school where she worked as volunteer for three months in order to understand the everyday practice of the counseling office and to observe the interactions between the counselor and students. Finally, the researcher interviewed nine counselors with different background and recorded their experience regarding the administration and the counseling services to students based on particular cases in order to understand situation of counselors who participate in the guidance regime management. The research results indicate that the guidance regime is indirectly influenced by the public opinion concerning the definition of “normal/healthy” student. The discussion on the topic of student guidance regime management is helpful for clarifying of the social control and social norms hidden behind the guidance regime and for monitoring schools that in order to protect social order justify management of “problematic” and “risk” student behavior.