Following the tragic mass school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, policymakers at the national and state levels are considering policies both to restrict access to guns and to increase access to mental health and student support services. Most notably, President Obama released a broad set of proposals in mid-January that included

Autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia may not seem on the surface like they have much in common. But according to a National Institute of Mental Health-funded study, they share the same genetic codes and risks, which can possibly help better diagnose and treat the disorders

What constitutes the identity of a counselor? Perhaps the answer, in its simplest form, can be found in the way that counselors introduce themselves. Martin Ritchie keeps it simple: “Hello, I’m Martin Ritchie, and I’m a professional counselor.” “I learned this from Sam Gladding,” says Ritchie, professor and chair of

Some months after starting my private practice in Japan, I (Yukio Fujikura) received an email from a Japanese American woman asking for an opportunity to do her counseling practicum at my practice. While living in Tokyo, she was pursuing her degree through an online school counseling program offered by a

Marsha Linehan developed dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) in the early 1990s specifically for the treatment of borderline personality disorder. DBT is a multifaceted treatment approach that includes facets of cognitive behavior skills training, mindfulness meditation, behaviorism and dialectics. Though none of these individual aspects is novel on its own, implementing

On occasion, even the best counselors in the field find themselves feeling stagnant or bogged down by routine — stuck in a box rather than thinking outside the box and trying new things with clients. A new joint initiative launched by the American Counseling Association and the Association for Creativity