A supervisee committed to a multicultural counseling practice approached me feeling distressed and self-critical. In my capacity as a doctoral candidate in counselor education and supervision, I had worked with this supervisee for several months and had also worked with him the year prior. At this point, he expressed uncertainty
Category: Member Insights
Articles written by members of the American Counseling Association
Despite several decades of counseling research focusing on culturally diverse populations, limited knowledge still exists about such issues as parenting, achievement, resilience, the intersectionality of identity and the psychological impact of systemic oppression on clients who are members of culturally marginalized groups. Most of the efforts within the counseling profession
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), which researchers have estimated affect 2 to 5 percent of the U.S. population, are lifelong conditions that result from exposure to alcohol in utero. Kenneth L. Jones, David W. Smith and colleagues are credited with discovering the birth defects and long-term impacts on cognitive and
How would you know if your client is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless? For counselors working in school or community settings, this seems like a simple question to answer. In reality, homelessness is a complex status that may be layered with shame, guilt, addiction, trauma, family strife, legal
For many counselors and educators, the term failure to launch is a familiar part of the American lexicon. Some have referred to this phenomenon as an “epidemic,” and a few prominent clinicians have even described it as a “syndrome.” This classification is problematic for a number of reasons, including that it fails to
Around the globe, coastlines are encroaching on communities, summer days are sweltering and reports of weather catastrophes often dominate the news media. These examples represent only a few of the monumental and pervasive environmental effects of our changing planet. Climate change may be the most crucial issue confronting the inhabitants of
Children in schools today come from increasingly diverse and complex families. As illustration, more than 1 million families are impacted annually by divorce. In fact, approximately 13.7 million single parents are raising 21.8 million children, and 1 in 3 Americans are stepparents, stepchildren, stepsiblings or part of a stepfamily. Furthermore,
I do not want to get out of bed, so I press snooze on my alarm again. I feel nauseated and think about calling in sick. Finally, I drag myself out of bed and take my time getting dressed for work. I leave my house reluctantly. On the drive to work,
This past year, the American Counseling Association Governing Council endorsed formal competencies for the practice of animal-assisted therapy in counseling. The authors of the standards, and the coordinators of ACA’s Animal-Assisted Therapy in Mental Health Interest Network, contend that the competencies (available at counseling.org/knowledge-center/competencies ) represent a key step forward
After approximately 25 years of working in private agencies, I started a part-time private practice a few years ago focusing on my specialty area of working with clients with substance use disorders. Having worked largely with adolescents, I was looking forward to working more frequently with adults, especially after I had