SNS Counseling and Community Support

Research Topic
SNS Counseling and Community Support

Lead Researcher
Toshio Kawai, Professor, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Collaborating Researchers
Yasushi Sugihara, Director, Kyoto University General Student Support Center

Yasuhiro Tanaka, Associate Professor, Education, Kyoto University

Kotaro Umemura, Lecturer, Education, Kyoto University

Yuka Suzuki, Assistant Professor, Education, Kyoto University

Center Co-Researchers
Sakiko Yoshikawa, Program-Specific Professor, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Chihiro Hatanaka, Senior Lecturer, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Masataka Nakayama, Assistant Professor, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Hisae Konakawa, Research Fellow, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University 

Nowadays, communication tools are shifting from telephone and e-mail to social networking services (SNS), especially among young people. Therefore, it is necessary to build functions for counseling, which have long been provided through telephone and e-mail, on SNS, too.

However, the trial introduction of SNS-counseling has only just started, and it is gradually being recognized as a new field among professionals. In this regard, creating a framework for a counseling system as well as organizing techniques and theories are urgent issues.

Considering these social needs, by complementarily combining the practical knowledge and the latest empirical analysis, a team of clinical and empirical psychologists will conduct research to establish specialized techniques, theoretical bases, and appropriate systems for SNS-counseling. Specifically, the project will launch SNS-counseling based on the cooperation with companies and local governments, and will establish the framework of “autonomous research – practice” by creating a system to support the community through clinical practice. Thus, we aim to solve social problems through conducting basic interdisciplinary research on SNS-counseling.

2020/05/29