The psychological well-being of college students represents a pressing global priority in higher education institutions (Hako & Mbongo, 2024). For adolescents, the transition to college life is characterized by academic pressure, social adjustment, and identity exploration, and constitutes a period of heightened vulnerability for the development of mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and stress (Auerbach et al., 2018). The prevalence of these mental health conditions not only impedes students’ academic performance and personal development but also poses significant challenges to college support systems (Lipson et al., 2019). Within this context, college counselors function as essential primary support, providing psychological intervention, emotional support, and crisis management (Brunner et al., 2014). The efficacy of these services is thus critical for ensuring student welfare and maintaining a productive academic environment.

 

Given their demanding role as emotional and psychological first responders, the personal well-being of the counselors themselves warrants serious scholarly attention. The nature of their work, involving consistent exposure to student distress, high emotional labor, and substantial caseloads, places them at significant risk for burnout, compassion fatigue, and impaired mental health (Knight, 2024). According to conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989), individuals strive to obtain and protect valued resources, and psychological stress occurs when these resources are threatened or lost. Counselors who are continually expending emotional and cognitive resources to support students may experience resource depletion if their own mental well-being is not adequately sustained. Counselors experiencing their own psychological challenges may possess diminished capacity for effective engagement, potentially compromising the quality of the therapeutic alliance and efficacy of their interventions (Rønnestad & Skovholt, 2003). A substantial body of research supports the significant impact of educator well-being on student outcomes (see, e.g., Maricuțoiu et al., 2023), but empirical understanding of the association between counselor mental health and student psychological outcomes remains underdeveloped. This represents a significant gap in the literature, as counselor well-being may constitute a critical ecological factor influencing the mental health trajectories of the student populations they serve.

 

We posited that the pathway linking counselor mental health to student mental health would not be direct but would be fundamentally mediated by the counselor’s empathy, which is the capacity to understand another’s perspective and to share and respond to that person’s emotional experience (Davis, 1983). Empathy is the core of the therapeutic alliance, fostering a sense of being felt, understood, and validated (Davis, 1983). However, it is a resource-intensive capacity. Counselors experiencing burnout or depression may find their empathy compromised, leading to emotional numbing, detachment, or personal distress that hinders their ability to genuinely connect with students’ pain (Wagaman et al., 2015). Thus, we posited that impaired counselor mental health would deplete the resources necessary for empathy, which, in turn, would weaken the supportive foundation of the counseling relationship and lead to poorer mental health outcomes for students.

 

Furthermore, the impact of this mediation pathway is unlikely to be uniform across all students. Characteristics of individual students must be examined as potential boundary conditions that alter the strength of this relational dynamic. Among these, family structure, specifically, whether a student originates from a single-parent or two-parent household, emerges as a potent moderating variable. Students from a single-parent family often navigate a distinct set of challenges, including potentially fewer socioeconomic resources, less parental availability for support, and higher levels of childhood adversity or stress, all of which can increase their vulnerability to psychological distress in the demanding college environment (Amato & Keith, 1991; Short, 2002). From the perspective of the differential susceptibility model (Belsky & Pluess, 2009), students in families with a single parent may be more susceptible than are those in two-parent families to both negative and positive environmental influences. They may also be more deeply affected by a counselor’s diminished affective empathy, having fewer alternative support resources to buffer this relational deficit. Conversely, they may derive greater benefit than those with two parents from a counselor who is mentally well and capable of providing high levels of affective empathy, as this relationship may serve as a critical compensatory attachment. Therefore, family structure is not merely a demographic variable but also a potential moderator of the strength of the proposed mediation relationship.

 

In this study we constructed and tested an integrated moderated mediation model to examine counselors’ mental health as a predictor of college students’ mental health, with counselors’ empathy serving as the mediating mechanism and students’ family structure as the moderating variable (see Figure 1). Our aim was to contribute a more nuanced understanding of the relational dynamics within college mental health support systems. The findings have the potential to inform targeted interventions aimed at preserving counselor well-being, training and safeguarding their empathic skills, and providing tailored support to student populations with varying levels of vulnerability, ultimately fostering a healthier and more supportive academic environment. We tested the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Counselors’ empathy will mediate the positive relationship between counselors’ mental health and students’ mental health.

Hypothesis 2: Students’ family structure will moderate the indirect effect of counselors’ mental health on students’ mental health through counselors’ empathy, such that the indirect effect will be stronger for students from a single-parent family compared to those from a two-parent family.

We employed a cross-sectional survey to investigate the proposed moderated mediation model. We used the network relationships of our research group to select 15 colleges in different regions in China. From each college, we recruited 15–20 counselors through institutional invitations. From each counselor’s active caseload, we randomly selected one student who had received at least three counseling sessions. This sampling strategy ensured adequate representation while maintaining the ecological validity of actual counseling relationships. Participants were assured that their responses would remain confidential. Counselors completed the measures at their respective counseling centers, reporting on their own mental health and empathy. Each of the students completed the survey after their regular counseling session, reporting on their own mental health status. All surveys were anonymous, with coded identification numbers used to match counselor–student dyads. All participants provided written informed consent, and the study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Xi'an International University of China (No. 2025[204]).

 

The final sample consisted of 248 counselors, comprising 141 (56.85%) women and 107 (43.15%) men (M_age = 31.78 years, SD = 4.06, range = 25–45), and 248 students, comprising 139 (56.05%) women and 109 (43.95%) men (M_age = 20.30 years, SD = 1.51, range = 18–25). Regarding family structure, 168 (67.74%) students reported being a member of a single-parent family, and 80 (32.26%) were from a two-parent family. The high proportion of students from single-parent families in our sample is consistent with the common reality of counseling services at colleges in China. Students from single-parent families tend to face greater psychological and environmental stressors, making them more likely to seek professional help compared to their peers from two-parent families. Thus, this distribution is not unusual in counseling settings, although it may differ from general student population demographics.

The measures that we used were originally developed in English. Two bilingual experts translated the items into Chinese and then back into English to ensure semantic equivalence.

 

The short version of the Mental Health Inventory has been confirmed as a valid tool for measuring mental health status in the general population (Berwick et al., 1991). We used it to assess counselors’ and students’ mental health. It comprises five items rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always. A sample item is “During the last month, how much of the time have you been a happy person?”

 

We measured counselors’ empathy using Vossen et al.’s (2015) eight-item scale. A sample item is “I can often understand how people are feeling even before they tell me.” Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.

 

Students’ family structure was identified through a single question: “What best describes where you lived before the age of 18 years?” The binary choice response options were two-parent family and single-parent family.

All data in this study were processed using SPSS 25.0. First, we computed descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations. Then we tested the hypothesized moderated mediation model using the PROCESS 3.4 macro (Hayes, 2018).

Prior to testing the hypothesized model, we performed preliminary analyses to examine the data quality and basic relationships among study variables. Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations for all study variables are set out in Table 1. The measures demonstrated adequate reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from .80 to .92.

To test the proposed moderated mediation model (Hypotheses 1 and 2), we performed analyses using Model 14 of the PROCESS macro with 5,000 bootstrapped resamples to generate 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We entered counselors’ mental health into the model as the predictor variable, counselors’ empathy as the mediator, students’ mental health as the outcome variable, and students’ family structure as the moderator of the mediator–outcome path.

 

As shown in Table 2, counselors’ mental health significantly predicted counselors’ empathy, which, in turn, significantly predicted students’ mental health. The direct effect of counselors’ mental health on students’ mental health was nonsignificant, indicating full mediation. The bootstrapped indirect effect was .25, 95% CI [0.18, 0.32], supporting Hypothesis 1.

To test Hypothesis 2, we examined whether family structure moderated the relationship between counselors’ empathy and students’ mental health. The results revealed a significant interaction between counselors’ empathy and family structure in predicting students’ mental health (β = −.22, t = 5.72, p < .01), indicating that the strength of the relationship between counselors’ empathy and students’ mental health varied depending on students’ family structure. To probe this interaction, we performed simple slope analyses. As shown in Figure 2, for students from a single-parent family, counselors’ empathy had a stronger positive relationship with students’ mental health (β = .64, t = 8.98, p < .01) compared to students from a two-parent family (β = .40, t = 8.05, p < .01).

The conditional indirect effects for the two different family structures are presented in Table 3. The indirect effect of counselors’ mental health on students’ mental health through empathy was significantly stronger for students from a single-parent family than for students from a two-parent family, The index of moderated mediation was −.13, 95% CI [−0.23, −0.04], providing support for Hypothesis 2. This pattern indicates that the mediating role of counselors’ empathy in linking counselors’ mental health to students’ mental health was more pronounced for students from a single-parent family.

In terms of theoretical implications, we have made three main contributions. First, by establishing counselors’ empathy as a mediating mechanism, this study provides a crucial explanatory pathway through which counselor well-being influences student outcomes, thereby advancing conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) in the counseling context. We found good mental health among counselors represents a valuable psychological resource that enables them to engage in the resource-intensive process of empathy, which ultimately benefits student outcomes. When this resource is depleted, the quality of the therapeutic relationship suffers, leading to poorer student outcomes. Second, although researchers have previously established empathy as a cornerstone of therapeutic effectiveness (Davis, 1983), we examined how empathy itself is contingent on the counselor’s psychological resources. This insight connects the literature on relationship processes in counseling (e.g., empathy) by demonstrating that empathy serves as a key mechanism through which therapist resources affect client outcomes. In other words, the therapeutic relationship does not operate in isolation; rather, its quality depends on the counselor’s own mental well-being. This perspective aligns with that of Wang et al. (2022), who conceptualized empathy as a form of emotional labor that requires substantial psychological resources. Third, our findings regarding the moderating role of family structure contribute to a more nuanced understanding of students for whom the counselor–student relationship matters most. The stronger indirect effect observed among students from a single-parent, compared to two-parent, family supports the notion that these students are more susceptible to environmental influences, whether positive or negative. This finding underscores the importance of considering individual differences in the student’s background when examining counseling effectiveness.

The findings of this study have significant practical implications. First, the demonstrated importance of counselors’ mental health highlights the critical need for institutional support systems that prioritize counselor well-being. Regular mental health assessments for counselors should be implemented at colleges, and accessible resources should be provided for their stress management and self-care to prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. Second, given the crucial mediating role of empathy, training in and maintenance of empathy should be incorporated into professional development programs at counseling centers. Third, the moderating effect of family structure calls for a more personalized approach to student mental health support. Counselors should receive training to recognize the unique needs and vulnerabilities of students from single-parent families. These students may benefit from more intensive support, an extended counseling relationship (e.g., lasting a full academic year or exceeding the typical 6–12-session brief counseling model), and connection to additional campus resources.

This study has several limitations. First, the cross-sectional research design limits our ability to draw causal inferences about the relationships between variables. Future studies could employ longitudinal designs to better understand causality. Second, our sample was limited to Chinese colleges, which may affect the generalizability of our findings. Cultural factors may influence both the expression of empathy and the role of family structure in mental health outcomes. Researchers could examine whether similar patterns emerge in diverse cultural settings. Third, our measure of family structure was limited to a binary single-parent versus two-parent distinction, which overlooks the complexity of modern family systems. Moreover, our sample was drawn from students who were actively utilizing counseling services, which may inherently overrepresent individuals from nontraditional family backgrounds because of their potentially higher vulnerability or need for support. This selection bias limits the generalizability of our findings to the broader student population. Future studies could employ a more nuanced classification of family structure with clear operational definitions, and consider sampling strategies that better reflect the general student body. Fourth, we assessed counselors’ empathy through a self-report measure, which may not fully capture the empathy actually perceived and experienced by the students during counseling sessions. In future studies, student-rated empathy or observational measures could be incorporated to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the empathic processes in counseling relationships.

In this study we demonstrated that the relationship between college counselors’ mental health and students’ mental health was both mediated by counselors’ empathy and moderated by students’ family structure. These findings highlight the importance of supporting counselor well-being as a fundamental component of effective mental health services in higher education. This also underscore the need for personalized approaches that consider students’ diverse backgrounds and vulnerabilities. More effective mental health support systems can be fostered at colleges by investing in counselor support and recognizing the complex interplay between provider characteristics, relational processes, and student factors, ultimately enhancing student well-being.

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