Declining Counseling Research in Counseling Psychology Journals: Is the Sky Falling?

Abstract

Scheel et al. note a rather precipitous decline over the past 30 years in the number and proportion of counseling-related research articles appearing in Journal of Counseling Psychology ( JCP) and The Counseling Psychologist ( TCP ). Certainly, counseling psychology as a field has changed over its 65-year history, and a great deal of that change has occurred during the past 30 years. But whether the frequency and proportion of counseling-related research in JCP and TCP provide an adequate picture of that change and whether that change is somehow fundamental to our field would be difficult to discern from these data. Although the reasons behind the decline in counseling-related research being published in JCP and TCP may be difficult to determine, there may be real consequences for the prestige of the journals and the field.