Counseling: A Comprehensive Profession

8th Edition

Chapter 1
History of and
Professional Identity in
Clinical Mental Health
Counseling

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 Definition of Counseling (1 of 2)

• Counseling is a professional relationship that

empowers diverse individuals, families, and
groups to accomplish mental health, wellness,
education, and career goals (20/20: A Vision for
the Future of Counseling)

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 Definition of Counseling (2 of 2)

• Counseling deals with wellness, personal

growth, career, education, and employment
• Counseling is conducted with persons
individually, in groups, and in families
• Counseling is diverse and multicultural
• Counseling is a dynamic process

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 Personality and Background of the Counselor
(1 of 2)

• Negative motivators for becoming a counselor:

– Emotional distress
– Vicarious coping
– Loneliness and isolation
– Desire for power
– Need for love
– Vicarious rebellion

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 Personality and Background of the Counselor
(2 of 2)

• Personal qualities of an effective counselor:

– Curiosity and inquisitiveness
– Ability to listen
– Comfort with conversation
– Empathy and understanding
– Emotional insightfulness
– Introspection
– Capacity for self-denial
– Tolerance of intimacy
– Comfort with power
– Ability to laugh

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 Qualities of an Effective Counselor Over Time

• Intellectual competence
• Energy
• Flexibility
• Support
• Goodwill
• Self-Awareness

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 Maintaining Effectiveness as a Counselor

• Compassion fatigue – indifference and apathy to those who are

suffering, as a result of frequent or overexposure to people in need.

• Burnout – consists f three components: emotional and physical

exhaustion, cynicism, and decreased perceived efficacy (Lambert & Lawson,
2013).

• Ways that counselors can avoid or treat burnout or

compassion fatigue:
• Associate with healthy individuals
• Work with committed colleagues and organizations
• Be reasonably committed to a theory of counseling
• Use stress-reduction exercises
• Modify environmental stressors
• Engage in self-assessment
• Examine and clarify counseling roles, expectations
• Obtain personal therapy
• Set aside free and private time
• Maintain detached concern with clients
• Retain an attitude of hope (Rosin, 2015)

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 Levels of Helping

Three levels of helping relationships:

1. Nonprofessional helpers – (informal) involves no
specific educational requirements.
2. Generalist human services workers – have
received some formal training in human relations
skills and work as part of a team.
3. Professional helpers – (formal) educated to
provide assistance on both a preventative and
remedial level. Counselors are professional
helpers.

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 Professional Helping Specialties

• Counselors frequently interact with three helping

professions, including
• Psychiatrists
• Medical degree (M.D.)
• Residency in Psychiatry
• Schooled in the biomedical model
• Psychologists
• Earn advanced degrees in psychology, Ph.D., Ed.D., or Psy.D.
• School work may be concentrated in clinical, counseling, or
school-related areas
• Social workers
• Usually earn a master’s of social work degree (MSW)

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 Attribution and Systematic Framework of
Counseling
• Attribution – what the counselor attributes the cause of
a client’s problem to, such as an external circumstance or
an internal personality flaw.
• System – a unified and organized set of ideas, principles,
and behaviors. Systems of counseling are concerned
with how the counselor approaches clients and are
interrelated to attributes and theories.

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 Attributes

• Four main attribution models that counselors use:

• Medical Model – Clients are not held responsible for
either the cause of their problem or its solution. Counselor
acts as expert.
• Moral Model – Clients are responsible for both causing
and solving their problems. Counselor acts as coach or
motivator.
• Compensatory Model – Clients are held responsible for
solving their problems but not for causing them.
Counselor acts as teacher and forms partnership with
client.
• Enlightenment Model – Clients are responsible for
causing their problems but not for solving them.
Counselor acts as authority figure.

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 Systems of Counseling (1 of 2)

• The Developmental/Wellness Approach

• Based on stages that various personality theorists have outlined
that people go through as normal part of human growth.
• From this perspective, counseling is premised on whether a
problem a client is having is part of a developmental life task or
not.
• Emphasis is on prevention and education.
• Wellness emphasizes the positive nature of human beings.
• Resilience personal qualities and skills, either dynamic or trait,
that allow individuals to make healthy, successful, or adaptive
responses to disruptive or adversarial life events (Lee t al., 2013).
• Theories include: Piaget’s cognitive development, Developmental
Counseling and Therapy (DCT), Solution-Focused Theory, and
Stress inoculation training (SIT).
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 Systems of Counseling (2 of 2)

• The Medical/Pathological Model

• Counselors base treatment plans on the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is
compatible with the International Classification of Diseases
(ICD) manual.
• Arguments for using the DSM in treatment planning include:
• The DSM is universally used in other helping professions and forms
the basis for common dialogue between counselors and other mental
health specialists.
• The DSM system helps counselors recognize patterns of mental
distress in clients who need to be referred to other mental health
professionals or treated in a certain way.
• By learning the DSM system, counselors establish accountability,
credibility, uniform record keeping, informed treatment plans,
research, and quality assurance.

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