School counsellors work in educational settings characterized by sustained emotional engagement, crisis response, confidential case management, and administrative accountability. Although occupational strain among helping professionals has received increasing attention, evidence regarding the support priorities of Malaysian school counsellors remains limited. These exploratory cross-sectional needs assessment examined burnout-related experiences, concerns about sustaining coping resources, and perceived relevance of psychological and professional support options among a purposive sample of Malaysian school counsellors. Thirty-two counsellors with at least one year of professional experience completed a researcher-developed questionnaire comprising burnout-related, coping-resource, and support-preference items. Item content was reviewed by three counselling psychology academics; however, formal psychometric validation and internal-consistency estimates were not available. Participants reported strong endorsement of structured mental health support, updated counselling skills, and Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC)-informed support. These findings should be interpreted cautiously because the sample was small and purposively recruited, and the questionnaire lacked established psychometric properties and normative thresholds. In addition, the absence of response variability on several support items may reflect ceiling effects, acquiescence bias, social desirability, or limited item discrimination. The study provides preliminary practitioner-informed evidence to guide qualitative consultation, psychometric refinement, cultural adaptation, and feasibility testing before development or evaluation of an MSC-informed support programmed for Malaysian school counsellors.
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