Sang Min Lee

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor at Korea University

This study aimed to integrate the technology into the training of counselors‐in‐training (CITs). This study examines the effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI)‐assisted counseling training using ChatGPT in enhancing CITs’ self‐efficacy and reducing anxiety. Moreover, it compares outcomes between CITs who engage in self‐review and those who r...

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the role of silence in metaverse counseling. We analyzed data from 159 counseling sessions conducted in a metaverse setting, which included 26 clients from a Korean community sample. The findings revealed that the most common type of silence was productive silence, with obstructive silence bein...

The perfectionism social disconnection model (PSDM) contends that perfectionistic traits are negatively associated with depressive symptoms through reduced social support. However, no studies have investigated the role of interpersonal emotion regulation strategies in this disconnection process. This study aimed to examine whether different interpe...

School counselors in South Korea are prone to emotional exhaustion due to job demands. To develop effective interventions for managing this exhaustion, it is essential to examine the relationship between emotion regulation strategies (ER), such as suppression and reappraisal, and exhaustion. Using a daily diary method and the Random Intercept Cross...

This study introduced the Measurement-Based Care (MBC), which involves evaluating clients’ conditions through routine quantitative assessment to guide individualized interventions and then explored how the elements of MBC were applied in the psychological counseling services provided by the Korean government-led Humidifier Disinfectant Health Cente...

Considering the growing interest in VR psychotherapy, this study investigated the relationship between client laughter and session outcomes in metaverse counseling. To investigate the relationships between types of client laughter and session outcomes in metaverse counseling, we employed a multilevel analysis by separating the variables into two le...

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of emotion regulation on the job engagement of novice school counselors while reflecting the variability and context of emotion regulation by utilizing a daily diary method. A sample of 100 South Korean school counselors completed the baseline and diary measures regarding emotion regulation and job...

The main objective of this study was to examine the role of psychological symptoms in the relationship between technological issues and session evaluation within the context of metaverse counseling. Evaluating the effectiveness of sessions within virtual counseling environments and understanding how psychological factors influence clients’ sensitiv...

This study investigated the impact of surface acting on exhaustion in Korean school counselors. Using the daily diary method with 223 school counselors, the study examined how maintaining a positive outward image through surface acting is related to job exhaustion. The results indicated that surface acting at both Level 1 and Level 2 positively aff...

School counsellors in South Korea face significant emotional exhaustion due to their challenging occupational environment. Previous studies have shown that cognitive reappraisal (CR) reduces emotional exhaustion, whereas expressive suppression (ES) increases it. However, these findings predominantly rely on trait questionnaires within cross‐section...

This study investigated the role of a therapeutic presence in metaverse counseling, considering the growing interest in virtual reality psychotherapy. To examine the relationship between therapeutic presence and working alliance over time in metaverse counseling, we conducted a multilevel analysis with sessions at level 1, clients at level 2, and t...

Background Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) involves the use of strategies by individuals to regulate their emotions through interactions with others. Research has shown that the IER is correlated with psychological symptoms and well-being. However, few studies have investigated the longitudinal relationships between IER and its related const...

> The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between academic demands, academic resources, academic emotions, and classroom attention difficulties at both the within-individual and between-individual levels. The study involved 179 elementary school students in the 5th and 6th grades who participated in a repeated-measures survey over...

This longitudinal study examined the mediating role of teacher support in the relationship between academic burnout and self-esteem among adolescents in Korea. A total of 154 adolescents (13 years old) were followed up for 4 years at 1-year intervals. Path analysis indicated that the developmental trajectory of academic burnout (i.e. the intercept...

In 2022, amidst the proposal of four law drafts, heated debates emerged concerning the qualifications of psychotherapists. This study delves into how counseling psychologists and the general public perceive the necessary qualifications of psychotherapists in their professional roles. A total of 882 counseling psychologists and 779 regular citizens...

Objective This study compared metaverse counseling with in-person counseling, using in-person counseling as a comparison group. To achieve this, we assessed whether metaverse counseling, a novel treatment approach, is comparable to traditional in-person counseling. Method: A total of 60 participants voluntarily participated in the study. Among the...

Objectives: The humidifier disinfectant catastrophe in South Korea was a social disaster caused by toxic chemical substances. The present study aimed to examine the relationships between psychological symptoms and adaptive life functioning in survivors of humidifier disinfectants. This study examined the differential effects of psychological sympt...

In this study, we tried to find out the minimum reasons for disqualification required to open a private counseling center. To this end, we first examined the existing legislation related to counseling proposed in the National Assembly. Then, we categorized qualifications and criteria for disqualification for opening a business in other industries o...

This study identified school-to-work transition student profiles based on emotional clarity and acceptance levels and examined how these profiles differed according to depression and life satisfaction levels. A latent profile analysis of 375 Korean college students identified four groups: (a) medium clarity and low acceptance (MCLA), (b) low clarit...

The present study aimed to develop and validate a checklist questionnaire addressing career problems faced by college students. The research involved four steps: scale development, exploratory factor analysis, scale revision, and confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analyses. The career problem checklist comprised four components with 16 it...

This study aimed to examine group differences in the survivors of humidifier damage and the effect of individual psychotherapy on the psychological symptoms of the survivor groups, using the single group pre–post study design. A series of Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney tests were conducted to investigate the level of psychological problems before and after...

The purpose of this research study was to identify heterogeneous counselor burnout profiles using a latent profile analysis (LPA) and examine the profiles in association with counselors’ personal and professional self-discrepancies in counselor qualities. Data from 360 practicing professional counselors were used for analysis. LPA identified four d...

The factor structure of the Stress Mindset Measure (SMM), an 8-item questionnaire, has been explored in several countries, showing inconsistent results. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the SMM with a Korean sample. A total of 912 participants completed the online survey (women = 59.3%) at T1, and a random subsample select...

The present study was aimed at exploring the learning experience of Korean out-of-school youths who attended alternative schools through multiple case studies. In-depth interviews were held with seven participants who attended alternative schools and currently are university students. The result was derived through both researchers' consent and the...

This study aimed to investigate the perceptions of counseling psychologists and the general public regarding the proposed psychology and counseling-related bills in 2022. Specifically, the study examined their preferences for the name, scope, and tasks of psychology and counseling services. Data collected from 882 counseling psychologists affiliate...

The present study aimed to examine the role of daily emotional processes in the relationship between countertransference (CT) management and emotional well‐being in novice school counselors. We collected data for 7 consecutive days from 305 novice school counselors in South Korea. Multilevel mediation analyses revealed that novice school counselors...

This study identified the work value profiles of Korean college graduates and verified the differences in job satisfaction and person-job (P-J) fit. It used 9,287 participants’ data from the 2019 Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey. The latent profile analysis indicated four work value profiles of college graduates. Chi-square statistics for pai...

The researchers used the contingent valuation method to estimate the monetary value of counseling services. Socio-demographic and psychological variables influencing willingness to pay for counseling services were identified for three types of major counseling issues: mental health, interpersonal, and job stress. Results indicate people would more...

This study investigated the effects of individual and contextual factors (students and classrooms) on academic engagement by adopting an analytical approach based on hierarchical linear modeling. The participants in this study included 906 high school students (42.7% male) from 42 classrooms in South Korea. We established that achievement value and...

This study compared the bills for psychologist, counselor, and psychological counselor proposed in March-July 2022 with the laws enacted in other countries to determine the direction of the law on psychological counseling in Korea. At first, the proposed bills were compared to examine whether they revealed a direction of separation or integration b...

This study was conducted to investigate whether a national certificate with exclusive rights to practice, as stipulated in the four counseling-related bills, is necessary. At first, national certification system of South Korea was reviewed and the differences between certificates with and without an exclusive right to practice were examined. Second...

In April 2011, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the results of an epidemiological investigation that an unknown cause of lung disease that occurred throughout Korea was caused by humidifier disinfectants. The unprecedented social catastrophe caused by humidifier disinfectants, a household chemical, has so far rep...

Based on Job Demand Resource Model (JD-R), and Conservation of Resources Theory (COR Theory), self-compassion was set as a personal resource, and how it affected academic burnout, and academic engagement had been investigated. This study was conducted on a sample of 599 university students in South Korea who were expected to have overwhelming study...

This study explored the recent controversy over the official title for the national certification in the field of psychology and counseling occurred by the several psychology and counseling-related bills submitted to the Korean National Assembly in 2022 and suggest an alternative. To this end, we reviewed relevant terms such as psychologist, counse...

This article discussed the selection and training process of counseling professionals, focusing on the controversy over the minimum requirements of qualification test. To this end, three professional selection and training models were compared and analyzed respectively, including the Licensed Professional Counselor of the US model (Model 1), Korean...

This study aimed to investigate how the new national certificate to be established should be granted to existing psychological counselors. To this end, the purposes of the counseling-related bills respectively proposed by Representative Choi Jongyoon, Jeon Bongmin, and Suh Jungsook were first examined, including a flood of private certificates, unr...

The enactment of a mother law for counselors has been emerging as an important key task with regard to the specialization of the counseling field. As of 2022, various laws related to counseling exist in the Korean legal system, but there is no law that contains the definition of counseling and duties of counselors. In 2021, several example bills de...

This study discussed how to improve psychological counselors’ competencies, focusing on the basic elements and duration of practical training to be specified in Psychological Counselor Act. Along with the definitions of practicum, supervised training, supervised education, and professional experience, the researchers compared the existing training...

The purpose of this study is to understand and explore the essence of the self-care experiences of middle-aged one-person households considering their individual circumstances and situational context. In this study, 10 middle-aged people in one-person households were interviewed. The interview data were analyzed using the phenomenological analysis....

Students in the transition period from school to work suffer excessive stress and burden due to its importance. Many are too busy for successful transition, which could lead to academic burnout and depression. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of self-compassion on the relationships among academic demand, burnout, and depres...

This study aimed to examine the effects of interpersonal factors (i.e., teacher and peers) on academic hatred using the hierarchical linear model analysis. The data were collected from 1,015 senior high school students from 43 classrooms (57.3% female) in South Korea. The results showed significant effects of teachers’ academic pressure, autonomy s...

Damage to the clients is increasing rapidly because of provisions of unethical counseling based on numerous private counseling certificates issued without a strict qualification system in Korea. As a result, multiple attempts were made to enact a law related to psychological counseling services. This manuscript examined and analyzed the four drafts...

This study aimed to test the multilevel mediating effect of intrinsic motivation on the relationship between burned-out classroom climate and academic engagement and theoretically investigate the unresolved issues in the Job Demands-Resources model. Data were collected from 1015 high school students from 43 classes. Multilevel structural equation m...

Students in the transition period from school to work suffer excessive stress and burden due to its importance. Many are too busy for successful transition, which could lead to academic burnout and depression. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of self-compassion on the relationships among academic demand, burnout, and depres...

The population of international students in South Korea is growing. During the career development phase, international students face unique challenges related to their bicultural identity and acculturation experiences. The present study examined the role of bicultural self-efficacy on mediating the relationship between acculturation and career deci...

The purpose of this study was to modify a burnout scale (Maslach Burnout Inventory‐Student Survey [MBI‐SS]) for Korean job‐seekers (Maslach Burnout Inventory ‐Job‐Seekers Survey [MBI‐JS]). By collecting the data from college students in school‐to‐work transition, academic burnout and job‐seeking burnout were measured longitudinally at 6‐month inter...

Emerging adulthood is a developmental period marked by numerous life transitions, leading emerging adults to be susceptible to distress and related psychological risks. The current study investigated the effects of socially prescribed perfectionism and parental autonomy support on psychological stress among emerging adults. We implemented a two-wav...

This study investigated the effects of a brief video intervention on attitudes toward counseling services. Two hundred and seventy-seven participants were divided into four groups (anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, fearful-avoidant, and secure) by their attachment scores. Then, the participants of each group were randomly assigned to three...

In Korea, the Value-Added Tax (VAT) law in relation with psychological counseling provided by the private sector has continued to change. In this paper, we reviewed the tax-exemption clauses in the VAT law, enforcement ordinance, and enforcement regulations related to psychological counseling services. Further, after examining cases of tax appeal a...

This study aimed to compare the psychological symptoms of humidifier disinfectant survivors to the general population and explore socio-demographic factors influencing survivors’ psychological symptoms. A one-way Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) and a series of two-way MANCOVA were conducted with a sample of 228 humidifier disinfectant...

The development of emotional exhaustion was examined at four time points across seven months among 987 high school students (female, 57.9%) in South Korea. Results of a multilevel growth model showed that the baseline and change in emotional exhaustion significantly varied across individuals and classrooms. At the individual level, depression, over...

With the recent recommendation of non face-to-face contact due to Covid-19 in Korea, non face-to-face counseling has been conducted nationwide. Various ethical issues may arise as the demand of non face-to-face counseling increases, but there is a lack of ethical codes for non face-to-face counseling in Korea which are the bases for proper response...

This study aimed to verify the different effects of peer support on academic hatred depending on the levels of teachers’ academic pressure. Additionally, we examined the effects of academic hatred on academic burnout and engagement by applying the job demand-resources (JD-R) model. Data were collected from 43 classes at 8 high schools ( N = 1015, 9...

In this article, we reviewed the proposed law concerning counseling in the private sector by legislator Shin Changhyun and comments on the law from the legislature (the National Assembly Research Service) and the government (the Ministry of Health and Welfare). Afterward, we compared two forms of counseling mother law respectively proposed by Korea...

Fourteen empirical studies on academic burnout were synthesized and reviewed with a meta-analytic approach based on the framework of job demand, control, support model. It was found that demand, control, and support were associated with academic burnout. The three dimensions of burnout were negatively related to demand and positively related to con...

This study was aimed at identifying counselor profiles based on their balance between self‐care and caring for others, and examining how these profiles differ by levels of burnout and life satisfaction. We conducted a latent profile analysis of 292 Korean counselors and identified four groups: (a) low care, (b) typical care, (c) high care, and (d)...

This study examined the relationships between acculturative stress, intimate partner violence (IPV), and life satisfaction of immigrant Vietnamese wives. A total of 288 immigrant Vietnamese women who were married to Korean men and were living in South Korea participated in the survey. As expected, the results indicated that acculturative stress was...

This study aimed was to investigate the factors of academic demands, resources, and outcomes among design major college students and examine the structural relation between those factors and academic burnout and engagement, applying the Job Demands-Resources model. In the study 1, 188 design major college students answered a preliminary open-questi...

The purpose of this study is to find out the mediation effect of parenting burnout and parenting engagement on the relationship between parenting stress social support and life satisfaction. This study was conducted with 276 working mothers who have children of elementary middle and high school students. To prove hypotheses Mplus 7 was utilized. Th...

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between life satisfaction and positive student-teacher and peer relationships. Further, we aimed to test the mediating effects of student resilience in a multilevel model. The data were collected from elementary students in South Korea. To examine the mediating effects of student resilience,...

The purpose of this short-term longitudinal study was to examine the structural relationship among elementary school teachers’ stress mindset, job stress, and turnover intention and to provide a foundation for teachers’ turnover prevention strategy. 190 elementary teachers (26 males, 164 females) participated one-month two-wave survey and the findi...

There have been numerous studies on the job stress and mental health of correctional officers. Most of them, however, focused on specific symptoms or the simple relations between various stressors and mental health. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the mechanism of the relationship between job characteristics and burnout among co...

This study aimed to investigate the effect of academic hatred, referring to the hatred of academic work, on the developmental process of the core dimensions of academic burnout, namely, emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Data were collected from 1015 (57.3% female) senior high school students in South Korea. The results showed that emotional exhaus...

Maladaptive perfectionism and controlled motivation are vulnerability factors for burnout. This study examined the relationships between two aspects of perfectionism (high standards, discrepancy), four academic motivational orientations (intrinsic, identified, introjected, extrinsic), and academic burnout. The target population was 12th graders in...

The development of emotional exhaustion was examined at four time points across seven months among 987 high school students (female, 57.9%) in South Korea. Results of a multilevel growth model showed that the baseline and change in emotional exhaustion significantly varied across individuals and classrooms. At the individual level, depression, over...

This study investigated the effects of motivation-based academic group psychotherapy on psychological and physiological academic stress responses. Indicators of academic stress were the psychological measures of academic burnout and physiological measures of salivary cortisol. The intervention group was expected to show higher salivary cortisol lev...

The purpose of this study was to explore the work patterns of Korean professional school counselors based on the amount of time spent for each job category and examine its relationships with their work satisfaction. The open survey with 19 school counselors working in Kyung-gi province and two focus group interviews with 10 school counselors recrui...

This study investigated associations among perfectionism (i.e., perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns), achievement goals, and academic burnout among college students in South Korea, focusing on the mediating role of achievement goals. A total of 281 students enrolled in a non-major psychology course voluntarily completed an online...

The purposes of the present study were to identify latent profiles using dimensions of the Career Flexibility Inventory and to examine the mean differences of the latent profiles and related variables. Career flexibility was identified to have 5 latent profiles: passive wavering, mediocre, rigid thinking, moderately flexible, and productively flexi...

The current study aimed to develop and investigate the psychometric properties of the Meaning Making in Grief Scale based on contemporary approaches to bereavement adaptation as a meaning reconstruction process. The research entailed three steps: scale development, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. The current 21-item s...

Development of academic hatred was examined at four time points across 7 months among 1,015 South Korean high school students. A multilevel growth model showed that the baseline of, and change in, academic hatred varied across individuals and classrooms. At the individual level, gender, parents’ academic pressure, depression, and test anxiety were...

This study examined the measurement invariance and latent mean difference of an English version (J. H. Lee et al., 2017) of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory (PHCI; B. Kim, Jung, et al., 2014) across cultures. Participants were 262 American and 291 South Korean undergraduates. Measurement invariance results indicated that the 5‐factor struc...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism, goal adjustment, and academic burnout. A total of 279 undergraduate students completed an online survey. Structural equation modeling was conducted to examine the mediating effect of goal adjustment on the relationship between socially prescr...

This study investigated the relationships between the supervisory working alliance and supervision outcome variables using meta‐analysis. The authors reviewed 27 articles, dissertations, and theses published between 1990 and 2018. The authors used the MIX program to calculate the meta‐analyses. The results indicate that the supervisory working alli...

This study is to verify relative influence of individual, parent, peer, teacher-related variables as protective factors and risk factors of academic hatred. Surveys were conducted with 1,015 (women, 57.3%) high school third grade students across eight schools where are located in Seoul, Incheon, and Geyonggi province. Correlation analysis and hiera...

The present study aims to extend the scope of understanding on the relationships between environmental factors and burnout symptoms by targeting and including more extensive occupational demanding variables related to therapist burnout. The present study includes not only common occupational stressors (e.g., working hours, role overload and role co...

Adopting a contextual, systematic perspective, the present study aimed to understand whether an individual’s adverse circumstances in one domain have a continuous effect on his or her maladaptation in another domain. The Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey data set, comprising a stratified sample of 1,932 students recruited from 95 schools from...

The purpose of this study was to examine the cross-cultural differences in vocational identity between American and Korean university students using the Vocational Identity Status Assessment. A total of 881 university students in both the United States and South Korea were sampled in this study assessing vocational identity. We compared means of la...

In this era of globalization, cross-cultural comparison studies could help counselor training programs enhance educational opportunities that are informative, supportive, and culturally responsive to students. Counselors-in-training in both the United States and South Korea were sampled in this study assessing self-esteem (individual and collective...

Recently, unpredictable disasters such as Sewol ferry disaster, toxic humidifier sterilizers case, earthquakes, and various mental health problems such as suicidal issues, depression, anxiety, school violence, and so forth led the Korean society to increase its demands for counseling and psychotherapy. Despite increasing demands and attention, ther...

We identified developmental trajectories of academic burnout related to psychological maladjustments (i.e., compulsion and depression) in 7th and 8th grade Korean adolescents. This is vital because it facilitates early awareness of burnout trends and related psychological maladjustments, which might influence mental health problems, thus promoting...

This study examined the characteristics of college students who are transitioning from school to work by measuring their mean differences on planned happenstance skills subscales at 3 separate time points. The results indicated that the mean of planned happenstance skills changed across the 3 time points and are somewhat different through demograph...

This study examined the cross-cultural validity of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory (PHCI) for a sample of 262 U.S. college students. The original 5-factor structure of the Korean PHCI was supported in the U.S. sample. Further analysis with career decision self-efficacy and vocational identity status showed evidence of convergent and diver...