Integrating Rationale as a Therapeutic Technique in Counseling Practice

Asian women’s paradoxical position of hypervisbility and invisibility is a result of society caricaturing and fetishizing their sexuality and bodies while simultaneously denying their humanity and personhood. Despite the long history of objectification and fetishization of Asian women in the United States, extant mental health counseling training programs and literature offer limited guidance to counselors on this concern, perpetuating an epistemic lapse in mental health counselors’ competency. With rising anti-Asian hate, the racialized COVID-19 pandemic, and anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States, there exist increased threats to Asian women’s mental health. Responding to a paucity of counseling literature, this article offers strategies grounded in the multidimensional model of broaching behavior to broach racialized sexual harassment experienced by Asian women. Implications for counselor training and future research are also offered.

The authors in this qualitative study explored how White counselors define and experience privilege and oppression. Specifically, 2 research questions were addressed in semistructured interviews with 8 counselors: How do White counselors conceptualize privilege and oppression as separate but related constructs= and What experiences do White counselors generally describe concerning privilege and oppression? The authors present a research model that represents the factors that contribute to changes in the conceptualization and awareness of privilege and oppression and the way that these changes come about. Implications for counselor training are discussed.

Korean Americans are a growing subgroup of the U.S. population with distinct characteristics and counseling needs. These characteristics and needs are considered and implications for counselor training are explored.

An investigation of counselor trainees' recollections of early family structure and current intergenerational relationships found that trainees who remained relatively free from "triangling" patterns with parents reported significantly greater spousal intimacy, more individuation from parents, and less triangulation with children and spouses, than did trainees that were consistently "triangled" with parents. Additionally, trainees who reported both a clear and more-or-less equal position of parental authority in their family of origin were able to maintain an intimate yet autonomous relationship with parents and satisfying relationships with their spouses or significant others. Based on these results, implications for counselor training are discussed.

The relationship among substance abuse counselors' education, experience, recovery status, and cognitive development (conceptual complexity and moral reasoning levels) was examined in a simultaneous multiple regression. Significant relationships were found between counselors' level of conceptual complexity and moral reasoning and their education. Implications for counselor training are presented.

In a study of 82 White counselor trainees enrolled in 3 graduate programs, gender and the lowest stage of cognitive development were found to significantly contribute to the variance in lower levels of the White racial identity. Male trainees who tended to think in dichotomous terms and look to authority to provide the correct answers tended to report attitudes about race reflected in lower levels of White racial identity. Significant relationships were not found between higher stages of cognitive development and higher levels of White racial identity. Implications for training are presented and discussed.

This article identifies and discusses six specific factors that distinguish group therapy from family therapy. These differences have implications for therapist training and practice. Failure to understand and acknowledge that group therapy and family therapy are distinct therapeutic systems diminishes the quality of therapist preparation programs as well as the delivery of therapeutic services

The authors describe an expanded role for counselors in urban school settings that can improve the linkages among families, schools, and communities: school‐based family counseling. The focus of this process is to assist children in becoming more successful in the classroom by increasing family and community involvement in addressing specific barriers to learning. The function of school‐based family counseling, strategies, and challenges for implementation of this process; a case study of a school‐based family counseling intervention; and implications for counselor training are presented. Benefits of the school‐based family counseling model for diverse students, parents, schools, and communities also are discussed.

This qualitative study examined the experiences of 11 students of color who participated in 2 multicultural counseling courses in a master’s‐level counseling program at a predominantly White institution. Findings illustrate students’ learning experiences based on instructors’ racial and ethnic identities, including a pivotal transition from distrust to trust toward the White instructor. Implications for teaching race‐based topics with students of color are presented.Este estudio cualitativo examinó las experiencias de 11 estudiantes de color que participaron en dos cursos de consejería multicultural en un programa de consejería de nivel máster en una institución predominantemente blanca. Los hallazgos ilustran las experiencias de aprendizaje de los alumnos basadas en las identidades raciales y étnicas de los docentes, incluyendo una transición fundamental desde la desconfianza hasta la confianza hacia el docente blanco. Se presentan las implicaciones para la enseñanza de temas basados en la raza con alumnos de color.

The researchers conducted this study to develop an abstracted theory on how White counselors engage in therapeutic alliances with clients of color with multiple marginalized identities. Using Corbin and Strauss’ framework, we identified causal conditions, contextual factors, intervening conditions, actions, phenomenon, consequences, and a core category. The model, based on interviews with 18 White counselors, highlights advocacy’s role in cross-racial/ethnic alliances. Implications for counselor training, advocacy, supervision, multiculturalism/social justice, and anti-racist praxis are discussed.

Counseling training programs have failed to differentiate between and among behavioral, cognitive, and unconsciousness dimesnsions. This omission has resulted in confusion and competition in many counseling curricula in that valuable programs are competing for space rather than being integrated systematically. This article proposes a multilevel model of intentionality which integrates the several aspects of the counselor-client relationship. In turn, this integration of behavioral, cognitive, and unconscious dimensions will have important applications in counselor daily practice.

Shame has been argued to be a core issue in complex trauma; however, few efforts have been put forth to systematically examine the conceptual and empirical evidence to support this claim. This review, using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, presents a preliminary map of findings that highlight the pervasive and hidden shame in the ecological subsystems of complex trauma survivors. A psycho-social-cultural perspective was utilized to highlight the manifestation and disguising of shame in various contexts. Our review accentuates the centrality of shame in complex trauma and offers several ways in which mental health counselors can explicitly and systemically address shame in their work with complex trauma survivors. Implications for counselor training and future research are also discussed.

In recent years there has been an increasing body of literature investigating the motives of counsellors and psychotherapists. Although there are considerable methodological problems with researching this area, the consensus in this literature seems to be that one determinant for becoming a counsellor may be a conscious or unconscious wish to make good the unresolved difficulties of early childhood. The unsurprising findings that counsellors have had as least as much trauma in their early lives as the general population raise questions about the impact of this for counsellors in training. This paper summarises the literature relating to the concept of the ‘wounded healer’ and examines the implications of this for tolerating distress among trainee counsellors. A model is presented that aims to address this distress and teach the trainee to practice effective preventative self-care.

A noncompetition agreement is a contract between employer and employee prohibiting the practice of a trade or profession for a specified time or within a specified region upon an employee's leaving an employer's hire (A. Valiulis, 1985). The authors assessed American Mental Health Counselor Association members' knowledge of the legal bases for these contracts and their agreement with the legal opinions and also assessed the degree of similarity and dissimilarity between members' knowledge of and agreement with the legal opinions. Results showed that counselors are better prepared to look after the welfare of their clients than their own employment interests. Implications for counselor training are discussed.

SynopsisMany counsellors, while able to express understanding of another’s here and now experience, have difficulty in enabling their clients to gain access to elements of experience not represented in immediate awareness and in establishing a therapeutic framework which promotes change. Three sets of reasons for this difficulty are discussed, along with their implications for counsellor training.