The effect of a psychodynamic counseling intervention on university students’ time attitudes

Time attitudes refer to positive and negative feelings towards past, present, and future, and have been associated with both healthful and maladaptive psychological variables in adolescents and adults. Recent studies showed that university counseling services act as a strategic resource in decreasing students’ distress and promoting their health in a key development stage. However, the way in which these interventions can influence the time attitudes of students who turn to a university counseling service is still unknown. In the present work, we aimed to investigate the effect of a psychodynamic counseling intervention in changing time attitudes, as measured by the Adolescent and Adult Time Inventory - Time Attitude Scale, in a sample of 111 university students who constituted the clinical group and received counseling compared with a comparison group of 141 university students who were on the waiting list and would undergo the intervention later. Results emerged from the mixed ANCOVAs showed that, controlling for age and sex, students in the clinical group reported a significant increase in Present Positive (p <.001; η²p = .047) and Future Positive (p <.001; η²p = .057) time attitudes and a decrease in Present Negative (p =.045; η²p = .016) at the end of the intervention compared to students in the comparison group. Our results support the hypothesis that a psychodynamic counseling intervention can have a positive impact on university students’ time attitudes. Given the association between time attitudes, academic outcomes and health, these findings support the development of interventions that incorporate time attitudes for university students.