Imagine two women standing in front of a mirror. The first one has the following thoughts: “I can’t stand the way I look. I’m so fat.” She feels anxious, insecure and depressed. The other woman says to herself, “I’ve gained a few pounds, but it’s not the end of the
Month: May 2013
Each June, ACA experiences several transitions, from our employees who find the weather outside nice enough to do their lunchtime health walks, to closing out “the books” as we finish our fiscal year. There are also personal transitions, such as staff members with children switching from getting their kids to
Licensed professional counselor and college professor Angela McDonald is helping her students learn more about the mental health of military service members, veterans and their families, and what the best practices are for counseling them. McDonald, an assistant professor and program director of the clinical mental health counseling programs at
The National Institute for Mental Health has launched a plan replace the DSM-5 with a new “Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)” project. Stating that the DSM is little more than a dictionary, that the DSM criteria are unreliable, and that those diagnosed with mental disorders “deserve better,” NIMH Director Thomas Insel
With the headline “Why NBA center Jason Collins is coming out now,” 12-season NBA veteran Collins wrote himself into the history books. Collins, who played this past season for the Washington Wizards and is now a free agent, penned an article for Sports Illustrated and, with it, became the first
American Counseling Association member and first-generation Haitian-American Florence Saint-Jean is striving to bring better mental health care access and awareness to the people of Haiti. In particular, Saint-Jean is working to create a trauma intervention curriculum to be used by professionals within Haiti. Saint-Jean, a counselor and Ph.D. student at
The whispers, controversy and speculation surrounding the possible contents of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) seemingly began as soon as professionals opened the cover to the DSM-IV text revision back in 2000. Later this month, that speculation will finally end as the
Imagine a world filled with counselors who all shared the same beliefs, values and attitudes. For those counselors to effectively serve their clients, the clients should also share the same beliefs, values and attitudes as the counselors, right? Thank God I don’t live in that world. Counselors are as diverse
T rying to bring closure to a process that began seven years ago in Montreal, the delegates to the 20/20: A Vision for the Future of Counseling initiative met for the final time at the ACA Conference & Expo in Cincinnati to discuss the two remaining “building blocks to counselor
If you did not attend the 61st annual ACA Conference & Expo in Cincinnati, you missed an incredible experience. Almost 3,500 counselors converged on the Queen City for education, fellowship, food and fun. Even though it was a bit chilly and the city sent us home on Sunday with a