Academic stress can have a negative effect on a student's cognitive, emotional and behavioural well-being. Furthermore, academic stress could also cause a decline in student’s academic performance. Therefore, it is necessary for the student to be able to cope and relieve stress. Religious coping strategies are one of the effective ways in overcoming academic stress. This study was aimed to explore and understand students' experiences of religious coping methods when facing academic stress. A qualitative method by using interview was used. A total of five respondents from public university were involved. The data from interview were analysed by using thematic analysis from five respondents. This study discovered three specific religious coping behaviour that were employed to cope with academic stress; 1) worship in the heart, 2) worship verbally and, 3) worship by action. It has also identified three themes on the impact of religious coping on 1) cognitive, 2) emotional and 3) behaviour. From this study, it can be concluded that specific religious coping behavior which had been used by the students is helpful for them in coping with academic stress. The knowledge and awareness of the internal and external stressors also can help the students to identify the best solution and coping mechanism to manage the stress. These coping behaviors also help the students to have a better understanding on how religious coping can affect students in term of cognitive, emotion and behavior.

Providing crisis intervention and psychological support in crisis work requires counselor’s resiliency in coping with the massive adversity situations, multiple responsibilities, unexpected public demands, and their own psychological distress. Thus, self-care practices become a crucial need for counselors that provide themselves with relief, recovery, and growth ability. Although most of Malaysian counselors does not receive formal training in self-care, it does not limit them to practice self-care in their own ways. Thus, there is a need to explore what kind of self-care practices are applied by the counselors in crisis situation so that the experience can be referred as a guide the other counselors. This paper is a qualitative review of several selected studies related to the experience of self-care practices among Malaysian counselors. The search strategy was applied to collect relevant studies by using keywords such as "self-care", "Malaysian counselor" and "crisis experience". The search was limited to the publication of research articles and dissertation within years 2015 to 2021. Thematic analysis then was used to analyze the findings of the research. Three themes that reflect the phases of self-care experience emerge from the thematic analysis namely (1) before deployment, (2) during crisis work, and (3) after duty". Each theme has its own subthemes that reflects the areas of self-care practices. The analysis also reveals two important findings. Firstly, it initiates that self-care practices are a continuous process in counseling profession particularly in crisis work. Secondly, it is found that the Malaysian counselors put high priority on spiritual self-care practices. It is hoped that these findings may lead towards further research to deeply explore the self-care experience of Malaysian counselors without neglecting the essence of religious belief in the experience. Keyword: Self-care, Malaysian counselors, crisis work, crisis experience

Counselors in Malaysia rely on religious practices for self-care and personal growth, according to a previous study. This exploratory study used a descriptive phenomenological approach to interview four counselors with diverse religious beliefs who are engaged in crisis work. The study identified three key themes of spiritual self-care: 1) religious practice, 2) self-reflection, and 3) internalizing religious values professionally. The research suggests the need for increased religious competence among counselors and emphasizes the inclusion of religious competence as a requirement for crisis work deployment. It also highlights the importance of incorporating cultural aspects into counselor self-care education.

Unconditional acceptance is one of the core attitudes in helping professionals to establish successful therapeutic relationships. Despite unconditional acceptance was accepted in most helping professional settings, it received less attention in academic scientific research due to scholars' disagreement regarding unconditional acceptance as a single separable construct from empathy and genuineness as proposed in person-centred therapy. The knowledge gap led to the implementation of this study, employing a qualitative method, specifically descriptive phenomenology. It aims to describe Malaysian counselors' experience exercising unconditional acceptance while encountering clients from various backgrounds. The thematic analysis revealed that unconditional acceptance encompasses acceptance of the client as a person, acceptance of the client's reality experience as part of them, and acceptance of the client's traumatic reaction. The findings indicate by years of experience, Malaysian counselors show high competency in practicing unconditional acceptance. It was found that unconditional acceptance requires counselors to have empathy, increasing their ability to comprehend the clients' situation and justify their emotional reactions. Counselors especially novice counselors need proper training and guidance to increase their ability to unconditionally accept their clients, their life experience, and their traumatic reactions. This study contributes to deepening the comprehension of implementing unconditional acceptance in counseling settings. It also provides new perspectives on improving the training curriculum for counselors in Malaysia, specifically in strengthening their skills in exercising unconditional acceptance and empathy attitudes.