The Bouy

Abstract
The aim of this study was to get an insight into school and career counselor´s experience in using the Buoy; an intervention in emotinal work with children in compulsory schools in Iceland. Another aim was to investigate the theoretical basis of the intervention and the reasons why school and career counselors chose it as an intervention. The Buoy is a selfenhancement approach based on emotional introspection and relaxation through breathing.
From the year 2003, more than 100 career counselors in Iceland have attended professional training courses on he Buoy. This is a qualitative study with both participant observations and interviews with seven counselors who use, or have used the Buoy intervention. Results indicate that the experience of the counselors using the intervention, was positive.
A prominent result was that most participants in the study had added something to the intervention or did not used its entity as reccomended. Among the counselors, theoretical background of the Buoy did not seem to matter much and most participants thought that it originated from the author´s personal experience and drama and relaxation techniques career. The most common reason for choosing this intervention, was the lack of teachingmaterials for working on emotions and because other school and career counselors reccomended the intervention.

Summary: The test results show that the Bouy and its tool are a practical and simple method to help individuals to work with their emotions and feelings. The experience for counsellers from using the Bouy was positive and in my opinion the researce showed that the Bouy has a strong foundation in the teachings of Dalai Lama, the theory of William Glasser, the existensialism theory as well as yoga. Therefore counsellers and other professionals can safely use it as therapy in their work regarding feelings and emotions.