Almost all counselors encounter clients who engage in behaviors such as extreme dieting, excessive exercising, fasting, emotional overeating and binge eating. These symptoms can be initially mild and overlooked or even viewed as normative in our thinness-and-appearance-obsessed culture. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between a client who
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The forces that could shape counseling’s future
[NOTE: To view this article as a PDF, log in with your ACA credentials here and select the January 2021 magazine.] In 2012, as the American Counseling Association was celebrating its 60th year as an organization, Counseling Today published an article titled “What the future holds for the counseling profession.”
Counselors look back on 2020
2020: The year that never stopped surprising — and often horrifying — us. Rampant wildfires on the West Coast. A record-breaking hurricane season. The violent police confrontation and resulting death of George Floyd that gave rise to widespread protests once more proclaiming that Black Lives Matter and demanding an end
Case conceptualization: Key to highly effective counseling
In their first session, the counseling intern learned that Jane’s son had been diagnosed with brain cancer. The therapist then elicited the client’s thoughts and feelings about her son’s diagnosis. Jane expressed feelings of guilt and the thought that if she had done more about the early symptoms, this never
Seeing the whole gifted child
Assessing symptoms and determining a treatment plan for clients is never a simple or straightforward task. That can be especially true when it comes to working with gifted and twice-exceptional clients. Imagine that a second-grader who is highly intelligent comes to your counseling office. The child has some intense interests,
Wellness: Getting beyond the buzzword
When Amazon’s Prime Day arrived in mid-October, media outlets from NBC News to Health.com reported on the “wellness deals” — on everything from sneakers and wristband fitness trackers to yoga pants and weighted blankets — not to be missed during the online behemoth’s annual spate of sales. The term wellness
Counseling Connoisseur: Counselors, pets and COVID-19
“Isolation is the worst possible counselor.” – Miguel de Unamuno COVID-19 has provided a unique opportunity to return previously external occupations such as education and employment to the home. This is often doubly true for counselor educators and students as both classroom and clinical practice are being offered via
Integrating substance dependence and pain management into counseling approaches
In the United Sates, 2000-2010 was labeled the “decade of pain.” In 2011, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care and Education stated that the prevalence of chronic pain in our country exceeded the prevalence of diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined. Unfortunately, this prevalence of pain
Healing attachment wounds by being cared for and caring for others
Those who work with individuals who have been traumatized have noted the need for these clients to reestablish connection to their own internal worlds. In these cases, clients often become frozen or, depending on the depth of trauma and the immediate response to that trauma, have an outwardly focused, hypervigilant,
How (not) to isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has steeply curtailed social gatherings, travel plans and in-person events for most of 2020. And that has raised something of a perplexing scenario for counselors and other mental health professionals: When almost everyone is isolating themselves physically to some extent — and will be for the foreseeable