This study investigated the effectiveness of a combined academic and personal counselling initiative on student performance and emotional well-being outcomes of 289 at-risk students at a Canadian University. Criterion for risk included academic struggles, mental health distress, or both. The program was developed to be tailored to individual needs, and students participated in weekly counselling sessions over the course of 1 academic year. Results showed significant overall increases in student grade point average (GPA), academic functioning, and mental health well-being, demonstrating the program's effectiveness in addressing the differential needs of students. Implications of the results are discussed.

Twenty males with a strong right hand preference underwent 120 simple reaction time trials to a 500 hz auditory stimulus presented to right, left and both ears. Ten Transcendental Meditators served as their own controls in twenty minute meditation and relaxation conditions and were also compared to a ten Non-Meditator control group who relaxed only in two 20-minute conditions. The reaction time trials were administered after the conditions. When the ears were compared to each other a significant right-ear (left hemisphere) advantage (REA) occurred in all relaxation conditions of the Meditator and Non-Meditator control groups. However, no REA emerged after meditation conditions of the Meditator group. The Meditator group after meditation compared to their own baseline relaxation condition showed a significant suppression of reaction time latencies to stimulation delivered to the left hemisphere and a significant facilitation to stimulation delivered to the right hemisphere. The meaning of these findings suggest Transcendental Meditation is an attentional strategy that disrupts the usual biases of the brain which also has implications as a clinical method. A neuropsychological explanation of the results suggest a comprehensive theory of Transcendental Meditation.

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This study investigated the differential role of therapeutic alliance components in predicting mental health and academic performance outcomes of a combined academic and personal counselling initiative. The study also explored the role of pre‐treatment severity and gender in alliance formation, as well as the moderating role of personality on alliance‐outcome associations in at‐risk students at a Canadian University. Pre‐ and post‐measures of mental health (SF‐36 Mental Health Composite Summary) and academic performance (GPA) were obtained for 78 at‐risk students enrolled in the counselling initiative. Criteria for risk included academic struggles, struggles with mental health, or both. Personality and demographic variables were obtained prior to the start of counselling and strength of therapeutic alliance was measured between sessions 3 and 6. Results showed that while all of the alliance components significantly predicted increases in student GPA, the task subscale predicted increases in mental health. Personality type preference was not found to moderate these associations. Furthermore, gender and pre‐symptom severity were not related to early alliance formation. The findings support the importance of the therapeutic alliance across counselling contexts and suggest that relationship oriented counselling initiatives may support both academic performance as well as psychological well‐being in at‐risk students. Implications are discussed.