INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Psychology 15, Introduction to Guidance and Counseling. My masters degree is in counseling and guidance, but it is a field that I sort of ‘fell into.’ I explain this further in the section "About the Instructor." This is a field that I have a great amount of interest in and hope to convey that through the lectures. Although the information will be lecture style, I write my lectures as if I am talking to the class, and I hope this makes it more enjoyable and easier to understand.

Your book is one source you can use to understand counseling and guidance. I will take my lectures from the book, but I will also pull in information from other sources. You will be tested on information from the book and from lectures. I will not lecture on everything that is in your text because that would be redundant. I will cover some things that I feel are important, but I will leave other things for you to read on your own.

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE COUNSELING

I feel it is important to begin the class with understanding what makes the process of counseling effective. The majority of counseling is facilitating. How can you facilitate the client to reach his or her goals?

CORE CONDITIONS IN COUNSELING

These conditions are essential in the relationship between a client and counselor.

1. Accurate Empathy-accurate understanding of the individual. Empathy says: "I understand what you are trying to say and how you feel, and I would articulate in this way. Most important, empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy implies pity, empathy implies trust" (Martin, 1983). Empathy is a communicated understanding of the other person’s intended message. Conveying empathy is not always easy. Good therapy is hard work. It "is an active process that demands concentration, feeling, and quick thinking. Probably the most common misunderstanding of empathy is that it is suppose to be passive" (Martin, 1983). Empathy-orientated therapy owes an enormous debt to Carl Rogers. People often associate his name with passivity, although that is not what he meant his approach to imply.

"Empathy involves being sensitive, moment to moment, to the changing  meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever, that he/she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in his/her life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments, sensing meanings of which he/she is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover feelings of which the person is totally unaware, since this would be too threatening."

Rogers "gives a common-sense test for when empathy is accurately sensitive."

"If the therapist has communicated a superficial understanding of the client’s expression, the client’s inner response and perhaps verbal response will be "Of course. That is what I just said." Clearly, this has not done much to advance self-exploration. When the therapist has communicated an effectively empathic response, the client’s reaction is likely to be "That’s exactly right! I didn’t suppose anyone could understand what I really meant. Now I wish to tell you some more." When the therapist is exceptionally effective and has caught the subtle meanings on the edge of the client’s awareness, the client's reaction is likely to be first a pause, then a gradual appreciation: "Yes, I think you’re right! I had never thought of it in just that way before, but that is what I’ve been feeling and experiencing. And now I see some more" (Martin, 1983).

Robert Carkhuff developed a five-point scale for rating empathy. It is based on behaviors that can be observed. We will go through the 5 levels.

Levels one and two are nonempathic behavior.

Level one response is "from the therapists frame of reference that ignores the client’s message." The therapist is not attending to the client. The therapist may be bored or uninterested in what the client is communicating.

Level two response is an "attempt to understand that responds to the client’s message but in a way that lessens the impact." The therapist may communicate surface feelings of the client or his/her own idea of what is going on, but these are not congruent with the client. These responses will slip into your responses when you don’t expect them. Responses in this level are dampening to the client

Level three is a response that is "right at or slightly behind where the client is working." The therapist responds to the stated content and feeling of the client. The response expresses the same affect and meaning. This is often called "minimally facilitative." The therapist responds to "surface expressions and ignores deeper feelings. This response is not bad, but it does not further the therapeutic process.

Level four responses add to the therapeutic process. The therapist is able to give a response that expresses feelings that are deeper than the client can express him/her self. In this response the therapist is adding something new from the client’s intended message. In this level the therapist responds to the whole message and the nonverbal clues to what the client meant.

Level five is often called advanced accurate empathy. This is when the therapist says what the client is on the verge of saying. This response accurately expresses feelings that the client is unable to express and allows for deeper self-exploration because the client feels that the therapist is with him/her. These "responses may be the most therapeutic, but they require considerable finesse at hearing the client accurately, and they are not common even in the best therapy" (Martin, 1983).

A study was done that illustrates the level of functioning among general and professional populations. In regard to empathetic responses, the general public and college freshman scored 1.5, nurses and teachers at 1.7, guidance counselors at 1.9, graduate students in psychology at 2.1, and functioning professionals with advanced training in the skills at 4.0. Keep in mind that level three response is "minimally facilitate."

2. Respect for the client-This is a belief in the innate capability of the client. The belief and expectation that people will solve their own problems. But they cannot solve their problems automatically. They need "unconditional positive regard." Unconditional positive regard, in Client-centered therapy, is nonjudgmental openness to the client. The therapist lets the client think, feel and say whatever he or she is experiencing without making judgments. The therapist conveys warmth and caring to the client. The client feels understood and accepted when he or she has unconditional positive regard.

3. Genuineness-the ability to be real and not artificial. To be yourself and not relating merely within a role. Genuineness involves self-awareness. Before offering help to another, you have to help yourself. Counselors need to deal with their past and current issues before helping clients. Genuineness also involves congruence within your self. You should do what you say and say what you do. Congruence means knowing how you really do feel in the relationship. It is being accurately in touch with your own feelings and experiences. Mostly, it is acting in ways that are consistent to your feelings and experiences. It is not pretending to be an expert. Incongruence sends the wrong message to the client. 

4. Concreteness-This involves the therapist responding in ways that are specific to the particular client, using the words that uniquely bring that client’s experience to life, rather than making generalized statements.

5. Warmth-Care and acceptance, which is communicated to the client.

6. Self-Disclosure-the purposes of self-disclosure is to make ourselves known to another. NEVER make your stories as the focal point

BASIC COUNSELING SKILLS
50% of clients do not return to counseling the second time. Why is this? Most of the time it is because there is no connection. If counselors increase their basic counseling skills the connection between counselor and client will be increased. These basic skills are not just something counselors can use, but a person could use in many aspects of his or her life. For example, when communicating with friends, children, co-workers, employers, or spouses, if you were to use some of the responses, the person would feel that you understand the message they are sending. You would communicate your understanding through your response.

Responses: IMPORTANT

1. Paraphrase-With this response the therapist restates the content of what was said. This lets the client know that you are listening and understanding. It builds trust and also encourages the client to give more content. You may also use paraphrases when emotion is too premature. Example: The client says, "I just enrolled in college after not being in school for four years. I am working full time, I am involved in community comities, and am a single parent. I’m not sure I have time to accomplish all I want to do." The therapist would paraphrase the content by saying, "You have quiet a bit on your plate." Notice there is not an emotion word in the response. 

2. Reflection-this is giving back emotion or an affective message. This also lets the client know you are listening and understanding and builds trust. This also helps the client to identify their emotions. You need a large list of affective words so that you can accurately communicate the feelings that the client is experiencing. The client can feel validated through accurate reflections. Example: To the message above from the client the therapist could reflect emotion by saying, "You feel overwhelmed by all of the ways you are being pulled, and this is compounded by the uncertainty you feel about returning to college."  In my masters program we weren't allowed to use the "F" word. The "F" word in counseling is "frustrated." Too many times this word is used when it is a general word for many different feelings. It could mean crabby, distressed, divided, hassled, oppressed, mistreated, strained, uneasy, or angry. 

3. Summarize-1-3 sentences that pull the session together. Just summarize the essence of that was said. This can be done at any time during the session. This is very useful with a client that talks a lot before pausing to allow the counselor to respond.  If the client covers several topics at one time, the counselor can summarize by saying, "Let me see if I've got this right"... and then restate two or three things that the client said.

Counseling involves a unique language. The easiest kind of therapy to master is "five phrase therapy." All you have to do is memorize the following five phrases and intersperse them judiciously in what your client says:

1. That seems to bother you
2. I guess you’re pulled two ways about that
3. I can’t help wondering how much all this means to you
4. Under that anger I think I hear some hurt
5. Under that hurt I think I hear some anger

The major purpose of counseling is to assist people with normal developmental concerns. Normal conflict arises when individuals have difficulty fulfilling both their own needs and the expectations of others and of society. Conflict may arise because of contradictions regarding a person’s motivations, attitudes, or feelings. People may have mixed feelings about decisions they are making in their life. Conflict may arise between individuals and important persons in their lives. Financial problems or illness may also be sources of conflict. These are examples of normal developmental concerns that counselors help individuals work through. These transitions and situational conflicts are one reason for the increase demand for counseling services.

Another reason for the increase in counseling services is because of the growing numbers of reported cases of child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, and substance abuse. Many persons from dysfunctional families need counseling and support services. Unless victims of abuse and their families get help and learn more constructive ways of relating to each other, they tend to perpetuate the abuse.

The primary role of a counselor is counseling individuals, groups, or families regarding personal, interpersonal, or career concerns. Counselors are also involved in outreach and educational programs, in assessment and diagnosis, and in crisis intervention. The services provided by counselors are voluntary, confidential, and they focus on the developmental, situational problems of persons of all ages and of various multicultural backgrounds.

Professional counseling is a process during which counselor and client develop an effective relationship, one that enables the client to work through difficulties. Important-Counselors follow a human development perspective. They believe that individuals go through stages of development throughout their life spans. Often as clients go through a transition in their life disequilibrium in attitudes and feelings is experienced. The process of counseling emphasizes a clients strengths and potential for growth instead of focusing on symptoms as pathologies or defects that must be eliminated or prevented.

Professional counseling was developed in the 1940s as a reaction to the overemphasis by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers on pathology and mental illness. Counselors focused on the developmental needs of normal people, particularly during transition periods as they struggle with conflicts and anxieties of adjusting to new tasks or roles.

When counseling began in the 1940s and 1950s the main focal point was client situational problems, problems that affect clients’ optional functioning in colleges, schools, and workplaces. During the 1960s and 1970s, personal problems and self-growth movements were the focus of counseling. Recently, counselors are now considering the person’s well-being in context with his or her environment. The client’s relationship with others is also a primary consideration in the therapeutic process.

Counselors are involved in prevention and intervention activities designed to improve the overall mental health environment in schools and communities. These are called outreach activities and include consultation, assessment and diagnosis, psychological education, and crisis intervention.

Consultation
Consultation is offered to parents, faculty, or administrators who may be having difficulty in their interactions with students, parents, or staff.

Assessment and Diagnosis
Counselors provide psychological information to help community agencies determine an individual’s emotional stability or personal abilities for specific training.

Psychological Education
Counselors carry out psychological education intended to improve the overall mental health environment in schools, agencies, or communities. Workshops, classes, or seminars may be offered. This area of outreach least describes the work of professional counselors?

Crisis Intervention
Counselors must be prepared to deal with severe depression, suicide threats, acute shock or trauma, alcohol or drug reactions, psychotic episodes, and even broken love affairs.

Professional counselors and counseling psychologists
Professional counselors are similar to counseling psychologists in that both are trained to attend to the normal developmental conflicts of clients. How do they differ? They differ in their professional identification and level of training. Professional counselors have masters degrees or doctorates in counseling. Counseling psychologists have doctorates in psychology with a specialty in counseling.

How counseling compares with psychotherapy IMPORTANT
Counseling and psychotherapy generally differ in terms of severity of the client’s problems. Counseling is generally short-term and focuses more on situational problems of everyday life. Psychotherapy specializes in more serious inner emotional problems that require more long-term therapy. The two are often used interchangeably and often overlap.

Other mental health specialists
Other mental health specialists who offer counseling or therapy services are clinical or psychiatric social workers, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychiatric nurses, and school psychologists. Schooling, licensure, and training differ for each of the specialists. Special training for mental health counselors includes diagnostic and evaluative skills, familiarity with entitlement programs, and knowledge of psychotropic medication.

WHERE DO PROFESSIONAL COUNSELORS WORK?

The following descriptions of various work settings cover first the traditional counseling services-schools, colleges, various public and private community agencies including mental health clinics, and federal and state counseling agencies. The second section features current trends in community counseling.

School Settings

1. Elementary Schools 
   Much of the counseling done in elementary schools is in groups or individual counseling. Counselors also provide psychological education activities and classes either to the entire school or to individual classrooms. Counselors also consult with parents and teachers. Elementary school counselors are usually the last hired and the first to go when budgets are cut. Administrators, for the most part, do not place a high importance on counseling early in life.

2. Secondary Schools
   Counselors in this area are also trained to offer individual and group counseling, consultation, classroom guidance, and career planning activities. Yet, for the most part, they are often bogged down in clerical duties and crisis intervention duties that leave insufficient time for counseling. Because of the lack of preventative counseling, crisis often occur.

3. Four-Year Colleges and Universities
   Counselors in university and college counseling centers are in the best position to apply their training to counseling clients with normal developmental concerns. University counseling best represents the model of developmental counseling recommended by ACA (American Counseling Association). Yet short-term counseling is emphasized which limits students to about 10 sessions.

4. Community Colleges
   Counselors at the community college serve a wider range of clients than do counselors at four-year colleges and universities. Multicultural counseling is important in community colleges because of the wide variety of students that attend these colleges.

These agencies are unique in that their funding is dependent on state and/or local resources and whose administrative policies are determined locally. The following are some community-based mental health agencies.

A. Public Clinics and Agencies
B. Private, Nonprofit Clinics and Agencies
C. Private, For-profit Clinics and Agencies
D. Inpatient Residential Facilities

Federal and state agencies provide counseling in the following areas:

A. Federal and State Vocational Rehabilitation Services
B. Employment Offices
C. Correctional Facilities

Counseling in the following areas has been gaining prominence. There are advantages and disadvantages for each of these areas. Be sure you review these from chapter 1.

A. Business and Industry
B. Community Career Centers
C. Managed Health Care Programs
D. Religious Organizations
E. Comprehensive Community Health Centers and Neighborhood Clinics

Your book states that the demand for counseling services has increased rapidly because people are experiencing more conflicts in their everyday lives as a result of escalating social, economic and cultural pressures and upheavals. While I feel this is true to a certain extent, I feel that the increased demand for counseling is also because it is more accepted today. People are more open with other people, family, friends, coworkers, about problems they are having. They are also more willing to seek help in resolving normal everyday conflicts.  For example, about eight years ago I was a year into my marriage and my husband and I were seeing a counselor for problems we were having in our marriage.  I mentioned this to my grandmother, who was in her seventies at the time, and she said, "In my day we didn't see anyone else for problems we were having. We worked it out ourselves!"  I said, "Oh, Grandma, everyone needs a good counseling session once in a while!"  My Grandmother wasn't very accepting of talking to others about personal problems. Counseling and psychotherapy are more common these days and defiantly more accepted.

CHAPTER 2-A Historical Perspective

In 1908 Frank Parsons opened a vocational bureau. It helped people who were looking for work. This was new for the time because normally people followed their father’s occupations. Parsons created the vocational counselor. He listened to people’s desires and feelings about what they wanted to do for work. By 1910, approximately 30 cities had programs in vocational planning and job placement. Training in vocational counseling began at Harvard University in 1911.

During World War I the first group standardized tests were developed when the US Army asked psychologists to develop assessment devices to screen out emotionally and intellectually unfit draftees, to place draftees in appropriate jobs, and to select qualified persons for officer training.

The first psychiatric clinic was established in Chicago in 1908 by Freudian psychiatrist William Healy. The services were designed to work with juvenile delinquents. At this time Healy was foremost in his profession. Freud was hardly known in the United States and psychoanalysis was not designed for children. This was an innovative step in psychology.

The field of psychometry blossomed and flourished during these years. Psychometry deals with developing, administrating, and interpreting psychological tests. Educational guidance also was developed and expanded in schools during these years. Because of the Depression in the 1930s the field of vocational guidance expanded in social agencies to serve the large number of displaced adults.

Tests were developed to cover all aspects of human behavior such as intelligence, personality, various aptitudes, and achievement. Tests were used in vocational centers, schools, business and industry. In school, guidance and education were synonymous. Teachers were considered guidance specialists and students were taught skills in living.

During the 1920s most vocational guidance centers were incorporated into school districts and faded from the community as separate agencies. They re-emerged in the community during the Depression and in the 1930s to assist the large numbers of the unemployed.

In 1939 the first college counseling centered opened. It offered educational and vocational counseling services to students.

In 1921 Child Guidance Demonstration Clinics were established in several strategic cities as a result of increased public interest in the mental health of children. The major tasks of these centers were testing and diagnosis of children with learning problems and of adults with symptoms of mental illness.

During the 1940’s a new direction developed in counseling and guidance. The major shift came after Carl Rogers published Counseling and Psychotherapy in 1942. In this book he proposed his non-directive, client-centered therapy. In his theory the client develops primarily through an evolving relationship with the counselor. In his book Rogers laid out a method of counseling that has influenced counseling and therapy ever since. Counteracting prevailing practice, he claimed that the focus of counseling must be on the individual, rather than on the problem, and that counseling is a process that involves developing a trust relationship with the client. Clients learn by exploring their feelings and reflecting on and developing their own insights. Diagnostic testing indicated the symptom and never the cause behind it. Rogerian theory was readily applicable for counseling normal concerns of persons.

As a result of the Nazi dictatorship, the Holocaust, and the war, many prominent European existentialists and neo-Freudian, psychosocial analysts immigrated to the United States-Otto rank, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson, Victor Frankl. Their approaches counteracted the prevailing American scientific assessment of individual differences, trait factor theory of personality, behaviorism, and classical Freudian psychoanalysis. Their presence in America influenced such leading American psychological theorists as Rollo May, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers.

World War II and its immediate aftermath greatly influenced the beginning of professional counseling, as we know it today. Millions of servicemen needed assistance in coping with the uncertainties during the transition of adjusting to civilian life.

After WWII the Veteran’s Administration also initiated and funded university training programs for doctoral degrees in both counseling psychology and clinical psychology. Because of this a new profession called counseling psychology was established. Counseling psychologists focused on conflicts experienced by normal persons. Donald Super was a professor who readily embraced the new concepts of counseling psychology. He saw this new field of counseling as one that combined vocational assessment, human development theory, social-cultural factors, and the early Rogerian client-centered approach. Super expanded the idea of human development into the vocational field. He also noted the significant difference between counseling psychology and clinical psychology. Counseling psychology dealt with normalities even of abnormal persons, whereas clinical psychology dealt with abnormalities of even normal persons.

Counseling and clinical psychology programs were set up in the early 1950’s at universities throughout the country. The first task for new counseling programs was to find faculty with sufficient background to do the training. The majority of these programs were established in the departments of education or educational psychology. Psychology departments tended to specialize in individual differences and testing or Freudian psychoanalytic approaches, or they were experimentally and behavioristically orientated.

Professional Associations also developed at this time. In response to the changes in counseling and the increase of funding for counseling psychology programs, Division 17 of the American Psychological Association (APA) changed its name from the Division of Counseling and Guidance to the Division of Counseling Psychology. Yet this division was only for psychologists with doctorates. This excluded a majority of counselors. Therefore APGA (American Personnel and Guidance Association was formed. This organization became an umbrella organization for several existing independent associations. New sub-associations also formed such as the American School Counselors Association (ASCA) and the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association (ARCA).

In colleges, the new counseling therapies were taking hold. College students were the ideal population for counselors to incorporate the new theories because college students were struggling with normal developmental conflicts. Most of the staff at the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University were eager to abandon the old pathological model of diagnosis and treatment and the classical Freudianism and to try the new psychosocial, developmental, process-orientated therapies. The counselors at these universities combined the humanistic Rogerian client-centered approach and the psychodynamic theories of Alder and Horney in their counseling sessions.

In high schools similar programs were developed. Programs that were voluntary, confidential, process-orientated counseling that focused on the client’s situational, developmental concerns emerged. This was the counseling role that APGA was to adopt in the early 1960’s.

The demand for school counseling increased again after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first space satellite, in 1957. Concerned that the Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in science, Congress pushed through the National Defense Education Act to encourage scientific and academic development in schools. Funds were provided to upgrade secondary school counseling programs by training counselors through special short-term counseling and guidance institutes.

The new counseling was spreading rapidly in schools, but was generally unavailable in the community at this time. Family work continues in clinics, where social worker-psychiatrist teams treated primarily children with disturbances.

Counseling experienced growing pains during the 1960s and 1970s. It spread so fast in schools and colleges that supply could not keep up with demand. Counselors lacked a clear understanding of their role and function and especially lacked adequate training. As a result the counselor’s unique role was defined and training standards were developed.

Concerned about training and counselor roles the APGA asked Gilbert Wrenn to review current counseling practice in schools throughout the country and to make recommendations. Out of his review came a book called The Counselor in a Changing World. In his book he proposed a blueprint that clearly defined the school counselor’s role and function and provided guidelines for training programs. The counselor, he said, is a specialist whose role is to counsel students and consult with staff and parents. The counselor role should be nondisciplinarian; moreover, counselor tasks should not include programming, advising, keeping student records, clerical work, or lunchroom duty. His proposal for counselor training included a 2-year graduate program with the major core in psychology so students would learn the new psychosocial, developmental, behavioral, and humanistic theories.

In 1961 the APGA also published a code of ethics that outlined guidelines for counselors’ professional responsibilities to clients.

During the 1960s, increasing numbers of universities offered free counseling services to students who were experiencing problems that interfered with their academic work. At annual national meetings of counseling center directors at that time, however, directors were generally confused about the purpose of the college counseling center and the role of the counselor. In response to this in the early 1970s APA Division 17 sponsored a task force to develop guidelines for university and college counseling centers. These guidelines reaffirmed that voluntary, confidential counseling was the primary function of counselors.

The emphasis on personal growth became very popular and accessible with the emergence of group counseling. Encounter groups, promoted by Rogers, and sensitivity training groups generated intense experiential atmospheres that released pent-up emotions, methods that were intended to raise consciousness.

Although very influential during the 1960s and 1970s, existential psychology (Ch. 5) was essentially philosophical and not readily applicable to practice for most counselors and therapists. Rogers’ client-centered counseling and Skinner’s behaviorism, in contrast, had been developed into therapeutic systems that could be used by practitioners. Although both approaches were limited they agreed only in their rejection of psychoanalytic theorists, such as Alder, Fromm, Horney, Otto Rank, Rollo May, Erikson, and Jung, who were generally lumped under Freud.

Other theorists like Albert Ellis, Erik Erikson, George Kelly, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung emerged during this period but didn’t influence the counseling and therapy profession until later.

Ivey’s interviewing skills and Carkhuff’s relationship skills, based on Rogerian principles, were originally developed for counselor training programs, but they were soon promoted as skills that could be taught to anyone, with the idea that within a short period of time anybody could become a counselor.

The old role of the guidance specialist popular in the 1920s and 1930s had emerged once again under a new term: psychological educators. Counselors were seen as teaching everyone life skills and relationship skills, rather than as counseling those with personal-social problems.

With the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 community counseling began to emerge in the 1970. Community counseling offered preventative services for the population and hospitalization of persons with chronic mental illness. Te typical ‘community counseling’ did not develop during this time because mental health workers and funding for mental health focused on mental illness rather than on people experiencing normal conflicts.

At the same time, however, a trend to close state mental hospitals began throughout the country. Federal financing decreased with the idea that communities should take care of the cost. Nonprofit private organizations emerged.

As for master’s-level psychologists, psychologists, APA refused to recognize master’s degrees as terminal. For this reason, to fill the need for counseling in the community, APGA developed master’s level community and mental health counseling training programs. A master of science mental health program was also developed. Unlike the one year master of education school counseling program, which was started 10 years earlier, the 2-year master of science mental health counseling track was designed for counselors to become licensed practitioners in the community.

Concerned about the unqualified practitioners calling themselves counselors in the community, APGA strongly advocated state licensure for master’s degree programs. It developed guidelines in 1976 for licensing of master’s degree counselors.

As counseling increased, the primary focus on the development of professional counseling shifted from school to community. It was gradually being acknowledged that adults of all ages continued to have difficulties adjusting to changes throughout their lives. People of all ages were experiencing increased personal and social stress. Vietnam veterans broke silence by expressing in consciousness-raising therapy groups anguish over their war experiences. Their expressed symptoms became known as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Erik Erikson’s psychological stages of human development throughout the life span made a strong impact on counseling at this time. Carl Jung’s theory of development through life also came about in the 1980s. During the 1980s, counseling theorists and practitioners reaffirmed that human development theory was central to the definition of counseling and to counseling practice.

As Albert Ellis’s rational-emotive therapy grew in popularity, other cognitive therapies emerged, particularly Beck’s. Beck suggested strategies in which therapists could use the Rogerian client-centered approach while at the same time develop cognitive skills that would enable the client to identify and alter dysfunctional emotions and behaviors.

Many books and articles on multicultural counseling were published in the 1980s. Counselors were cautioned to be aware of their potential biases and were encouraged to become aware of differing social and cultural beliefs and special characteristics of each of the varying ethnic groups.

Gender issues related to human development theories arose. Female counselors challenged developmental principles based on male norms. At the same time, the men’s movement objected to male stereotyping.

College counseling centers were training laboratories for the new therapies and cultural perspectives. However there was a decrease in career counseling, and increases in counseling students with severe personal problems, in time-limited counseling and in outreach and consultation. There was also a decrease in funding for school counseling.

IMPORTANT Many new counseling services emerged in the community. The strongest services to appear at this time were the family-orientated counseling and substance abuse programs. The new family systems approaches enabled social workers to work effectively with a wide range of dysfunctional families. Counselors also became more involved in the impact of substance abuse on families. The profession called attention to the dysfunctions of adult children of alcoholics and developed healing programs. During this time cooperation between professional counselors and Alcoholics Anonymous decreased.

APGA and the American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA) agreed in 1979 to merge. Consequently, APGA voted in 1983 to change the organization’s name to the American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD). This name change reflected the changing emphasis in counseling activity and training.

Professional counselors successfully established themselves during the 1990s in both schools and communities. Well-trained master’s degree counselors became the norm in many school districts. In the community, increasing numbers of state licensure laws came into effect that allowed mental health counselors to set up private practice. Cooperation between community mental health services and school counseling services increased.

During the 1990s, multicultural counseling competencies were adopted by leading counseling professional associations. Similar to post-World War II years, increasing numbers of professional counselors once again recognize the effect of political, environmental, social, and economic conditions on client general well-being. Now taken into account are such social factors as job loss, poor nutrition, abuse, homelessness, and pollution. Furthermore, post-traumatic stress, first identified among Vietnam veterans in the late 1970s and 1980s, was acknowledged as a disorder for anyone suffering from trauma-all war veterans, refugees, torture victims, victims of domestic violence. Likewise, the treatment of alcohol and drug addictions spread to the treatment of all addictions or compulsive disorders-eating disorders, sexual abuse, co-dependency, and gambling.

As school counselors with master’s degrees in counseling became more prevalent in schools, they have been increasingly asked to intervene in student crises resulting from substance abuse, gang violence, family conflicts, and teenage pregnancies. These crises have become so prevalent that counselors unfortunately have often been prevented from serving the normal developmental needs of students.

The most significant development in professional counseling in the 1990s occurred in community counseling services and in counselor training programs. Managed care programs, with their focus on brief counseling, made a strong impact on community counseling. Health maintenance organizations, HMOs, which are a form of managed health care, increased their involvement in offering counseling services. As these programs have mushroomed, increasing numbers of licensed or certified mental health counselors have become eligible to receive insurance payments for services. In regard to career counseling in the community, increasing numbers of adults in the 1990s changed jobs. Many were abruptly laid off because their skills had become obsolete. Many new technical jobs opened requiring new skills. Consequently the need for career counseling in the community escalated, and career counseling centers emerged throughout the country.

Also in the 1990s, increasing numbers of developmental theorists emphasized that older adults have the potential to continue to grow and develop. Counselors started to turn their attention to those 80% of older adults who are self-sufficient and relatively healthy but who nevertheless are experiencing anxiety, depression, or grief resulting from transitions, losses, and sudden changes in life stages.

Many professional counselors recognized the importance of the client’s religious and spiritual concerns and realized the importance of incorporating theories of spiritual development into counseling practice.

Martin, D. G. (1983). Counseling and therapy skills. Illinois, Waveland Press

Please complete assignments 1 and 2, quiz one, discussion question 1, and respond to the postings of two other students.

Discussion Question One:

The first section of the lecture discusses effective counseling. Over 50% of people do not return to counseling after the first visit. Why do you think this is? What three qualities (core conditions of counseling) do you see as being the most important to the therapeutic relationship? Why do you see these as important? Include research that you find through a websearch to substantiate your answer. Please include the website address in your answer.
 

(Your discussion posting should be at least two well-developed paragraphs of at least 200 words total.)

Remember to respond to at least two other students. Respond to their answer; do not just tell them your answer to the discussion question. Your posting to others should be at least one paragraph of 100 words.

Please submit Assignment One and Two below: