Mapping the terrain of Journal of Counseling Psychology: A citation network analysis.

Abstract

In this study, we conducted a citation network analysis of the Journal of Counseling Psychology (JCP) to elucidate the scope, evolution, and interconnections of JCP publications as reflected in how authors use (i.e., cite) these publications. We used CitNetExplorer to analyze a network of 4,718 JCP publications and 16,959 citation links. The analysis yielded 19 clusters in JCP's citation network. The most dominant facet of the citation network focused on counseling, counseling process, and counseling outcome. The clusters in this facet shifted from an early focus on perceptions of counselors to continuing examinations of what happens in counseling. Another dominant facet comprised clusters on vocational psychology, shifting from an earlier focus on vocational choice and interest, to career counseling and decision making, to vocational and academic development processes and predictors. These major facets converged toward a continuing cluster focused on methodology and analysis along with race, gender, sexuality, and other diversity scholarship. This suggests that diversity-focused publications in JCP often employ and cite methodological and analytic advances. The results also reveal discontinued areas of scholarship in JCP that are ripe for revisiting and rebuilding in new directions (e.g., anger and social justice activism; clinical judgment and artificial intelligence). The results suggest that a promising next step in the evolution of JCP would be for authors to engage with and cite diversity scholarship as central to "general" domains of JCP scholarship. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).