keynotes praise, challenge counselors- may 2006

that they perform a variety ofimportant tasks, from savinglives to making sure that peoplelive their lives more fully, fromkeeping families intact to help-ing people from all walks of lifereach their potential. “You arenot choosing an easy road in life

when you decide to work in themental health field,” said Gore,who asked the counselors inattendance to think about thevictories they had achieved andto celebrate each other’s indis-pensable contributions with a

Counseling summit could shape profession’s future‘Identity’ crisis surfaces as crucial issue at ‘20/20: A Vision for the Future of Counseling’

BY JONATHAN ROLLINS

Editor’s note: Both audio andvideo downloads of the keynoteaddresses delivered at theACA/CCA Convention areavailable on the ACA website atwww.counseling.org.

If counselors occasionally feelthat their work goes unnoticedor underappreciated by theworld at large, those in atten-dance at the American Counsel-ing Association/Canadian Coun-selling Association Conventionin Montréal received a healthydose of both gratitude andencouragement. Both StephenLewis and Mary Elizabeth “Tip-per” Gore, the convention’skeynote speakers, readily andenthusiastically acknowledged

the pivotal role that counselorsplay in society.

“It’s a tremendous privilegeto speak (at this convention),”said Lewis, the U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy forHIV/AIDS in Africa and one ofTIME magazine’s “100 mostinfluential people in the world”for 2005. “I have a huge admi-ration for the profession ofcounseling. … You are peoplewho care deeply about thehuman condition.”

Gore, the mental health policyadviser to former President BillClinton and the wife of formerVice President Al Gore, told theaudience, “Professional coun-selors have a very special placein my heart. … I know how veryimportant your work is.” Shetold the assembled counselors

House budget stalls, Senate budget growsbefore spring recess

The House of Representativesadjourned April 6 for a two-week recess after failing to voteon a Fiscal Year 2007 budgetresolution. Squabbling amongappropriators, conservatives andmoderates left House leaderswithout the votes needed to passthe budget. House MajorityLeader John Boehner (R-Ohio)has vowed to continue negotia-tions after recess. Failure to passa budget resolution would makeit more difficult for Congress toenact large budget or tax cutslater in the year.

The Senate narrowly approvedits version of the budget resolu-tion on March 16. During budgetconsideration, the Senate adopt-ed an amendment offered bySens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) andTom Harkin (D-Iowa) to providean additional $7 billion to educa-

BY JONATHAN ROLLINS

“Identity” was the buzzword

that emerged from the most

recent counseling summit, held

April 1 during the AmericanCounseling Association/Canadi-an Counselling AssociationConvention in Montréal.

Following on the heels of theinitial summit, which tookplace Jan. 11 at the AmericanAssociation of State Counsel-ing Boards Annual Conferencein Phoenix, 20 delegates from awide range of counseling orga-nizations met in Montréal toidentify and discuss issues theybelieve must be addressed toensure the profession’s futurehealth.

Many issues were given

voice, but one in particularspoke most clearly to those inattendance. “I believe the majorissue that the counseling profes-sion must address is identity,”said Lynn Linde, the delegaterepresenting ACA’s SouthernRegion. “While we all identifyourselves as counselors, in dis-cussion it is clear that not allcounselors self-identify as coun-selors first and their specialtyarea second. ACA began as acoalition of organizations, andsome counselors believe thatmodel is how we should contin-ue to operate. I believe, as do

others, that we are all counselorsfirst, that there is a core body ofknowledge and skills and a pur-pose that unites us (and that) weneed additional training andexperience to be effective in the(specialty) area in which wechose to practice. While thismay sound like a chicken-or-egg discussion, it lies at theheart of our profession. Are weone profession or many relatedprofessions under an umbrella?Until we decide this issue, it willbe hard for us to move ahead.

AN AMERICAN COUNSELING ASSOCIATION PUBLICATION www.counseling.org/ctonline

8 AASCB licensure portability plan moves closer to reality 10 Graduate Student Association among topics of student summit14 Counselors putting more faith in spiritual assessment techniques16 Senate briefing spotlights school-based mental health services18 Therapists take a closer look at the mind-music connection20 ACA national award winners recognized at annual convention38 Using the ‘community standard’ to set fees in private practice41 Pictorial coverage of the ACA/CCA Convention in Montréal

DEPARTMENTS4 Letters to the Editor5 From the President6 Executive Director’s Message12 Finding Your Way24 Resource Reviews32 Division, Region & Branch News36 ACA Journal Spotlight39 Student Focus51 Classifieds

8 14

CounselingTodayWASHINGTONUPDATE

PERIODICALS MAIL-NEWSPAPER HANDLING

Keynotes praise, challenge counselorsLewis charges the profession to serve as a ‘moral anchor’; Gore encourages convention attendees to embrace opportunities

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WASHINGTONUPDATE

Written and compiled by Scott Barstow, Christopher Campbell and Brian Altman

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How can we expect the public,legislators, stakeholders andothers to instantly recognize uswhen we are not in agreement asto who we are?”

“The identity question perme-ates everything we, as profes-sional counselors, do,” she con-tinued. “I believe that once wedecide this issue, we can movethe profession and the profes-sional association forward.Then the secondary issues ofaccreditation of counselor edu-cation programs, credentialingof counselors, public relations,public policy and legislationefforts, serving clients, etc., canbe decided.”

Rosemarie Woodruff, theWestern Region delegate, ex-pressed similar sentiments. “Ibelieve any effort to move ourprofession forward needs tobegin with clarifying and em-bracing our identity as profes-sional counselors,” she said.“Medical doctors and socialworkers have traditions that areembedded in the societal fabric,and we have not yet carved outour niche. We need to define ourunique contribution to the men-tal health field and educate thepublic. In order to speak withone voice, we need to develop acommon philosophy that in-cludes all specialties.”

The counselor summit meet-ings are phase one of “20/20: AVision for the Future of Coun-seling,” an effort co-sponsoredby AASCB and ACA. Phase onesessions are limited to identify-ing and discussing the issuesthat are impeding the profes-sion’s progress. Phase two ses-sions will focus on definingaction steps to resolve thoseissues, while phase three willconsist of implementing theseaction steps.

A significant undertaking“My hope is that we can find

common ground that willstrengthen the profession ofcounseling and our identity inthe public domain,” ACA Presi-dent Patricia Arredondo said inspeaking about her hopes for thecounseling summits. “Second, Iwould like to see us have astronger ongoing relationshipbetween ACA and AASCB. Thiswould help counselors knowthat there is a central placewhere issues can be taken andresources can be found.”

The profession needs to have amore unified approach if ithopes to achieve additional leg-islative and licensure victories,she said. But that unity alsoneeds to extend to preparing as aprofession to meet the needs and

Counseling summit Continued from page 1

challenges of specific groups,from the growing numbers ofsenior citizens in the UnitedStates to its emerging youngLatino population. “Counselorsmust be at the forefront togetherto be responsive to changingpopulations and their needs,”Arredondo said.

Sam Gladding, immediate pastpresident of ACA and the facili-tator of the phase one meetings,views the “20/20” effort as criti-cal to ensuring the profession’sstability and well-being. “Coun-seling is a relatively young pro-fession — much younger thanpsychology, social work, psychi-atry, nursing, etc.,” he said. “Weneed to be more proactive if weare going to be a core mentalhealth profession. We, as coun-selors, bring many specialties tothe table of wellness with ouremphasis on development andprevention as well as treatment.However, we have not been asgood at advocating for what wedo and our own uniqueness assome other professions. Hope-fully, this effort will help us all tobe more united in a focus and anemphasis and will help us notonly with our identity but with apurposefulness in our energy. …I think the 20/20 summit is cru-cial to envisioning where we canbe in counseling. If we can seemore clearly where we want tobe in the year 2020, we are muchmore likely to get there as a pro-fession.”

ACA Chief Professional Offi-cer David Kaplan also views the20/20 undertaking as a crucialeffort for counseling’s future.“Our splintering and lack ofunity is hurting the profession,

confusing the public and inter-fering with legislative efforts,”he said. “There have been peri-odic attempts to do somethinglike (the 20/20 counseling sum-mits) in the past — Chi SigmaIota led a noteworthy effort anumber of years back — but Ido think this is historic because,as far as I know, it is the firsttime all of the major players incounseling are coming togetherto hammer out a vision for thefuture: ACA, AASCB, NBCC,CRCC, CACREP, CORE, CSI,all ACA divisions and all ACAregions. That makes 30 counsel-ing organizations working to-gether to plan for the future.”

The evolution of ‘20/20’Kaplan credited both the

AASCB and ACA presidentialteams for their teamwork andthorough planning in getting the20/20 effort off the ground.“The initial impetus came fromthe AASCB presidential team(Jim Wilson, Charlie Gagnonand J. Barry Mascari),” he said.“They realized that multiplevariations in state licensing titlesand regulations were hamperingefforts to develop and imple-ment the AASCB licensureportability plan. The AASCBpresidential team then ap-proached the ACA presidentialteam and asked if it would makesense to co-sponsor a summit toaddress the lack of unity in thecounseling profession. After aseries of meetings, it was decid-ed to expand the summit toproactively look at all issues thatneed to be addressed to movethe profession forward over thenext 15 years.

“Sam Gladding came up withthe creative name of 20/20: AVision for the Future of Coun-seling to signify that we are notonly looking at thorny issuesthat need to be resolved current-ly but also proactively planningfor a clear 20/20 vision of wherewe want the future of profes-sional counseling to be in theyear 2020.”

AASCB Past President JimWilson said two circumstancesled its leadership team to con-clude that the counseling profes-sion sorely needed to hold asummit meeting. One wasAASCB’s work to formulate alicense portability plan (for arelated story, see page 8). In theprocess, he said, it became “veryclear that requirements werevery different from state to state.Also, there were different kindsof counselors being licensed. Inessence, as I understand the sit-uation, counselor licensure wasthought to be a unifying eventrather than one which has, on anumber of levels, further frag-mented the profession.”

More red flags were raised bythe dissertation of J. Barry Mas-cari, now AASCB’s president-elect, which addressed the rela-tionship between counselorlicensing standards and viola-tions. Mascari found that thestandards were so varied that hecouldn’t conduct the study hehad planned. “The results indi-cated that the top three issuesthe counseling profession wasfacing in the future were profes-sional identity, portability and awide variation of licensing stan-dards,” he said. “Clearly, theissues were intertwined.”

“In my study,” Mascari said,“I found that our profession hastoo many individual confer-ences, too many codes of ethicsand we are pulled in directionsthat reduce our power ratherthan create synergy. … My find-ings suggested that counseloridentity was less clear now thana decade ago. In my review, Ispeculated that the professionspent so much time on achiev-ing licensure that we neverthought about the answer to thequestion, once we were success-ful (with licensure), of ‘Nowwhat?’ Jim, Charlie Gagnon andI discussed this at our retreat andagreed that the greatest threat toportability was the identity issueand the threats posed by disaffil-iation from ACA. We believedthat our work in licensure waslike a traffic-copter — we couldsee the larger view, and thefuture was not as positive as welike to delude ourselves intothinking.”

Meeting in MontréalAt the summit in Montréal,

AASCB President CharlieGagnon stressed to the delegatesthat “The idea of keeping theprofession unified is very im-portant. That way, when wewant to accomplish something,it will make it that much easier.”

Gladding also encouraged thedelegates to look at the big pic-ture. “I hope we’ll think aboutthe profession of counseling(during this summit) and not justa particular group that we havean allegiance to,” he said.

For the next three hours, dele-gates raised a variety of issues,from orienting students to the

Twenty delegates from a wide range of counseling organizations met in Montréal for the 20/20 summit, which was facilitated by ACAImmediate Past President Sam Gladding. A separate group of delegates also met in January at the AASCB conference in Phoenix.

lose. However, if we could takesome magical leap across thatgulf, the counseling professionwould be on its way to a healthyfuture. The ship is big enough tocarry all of us in the future. Thequestion is whether (individualsin) a profession that prides itselfon diversity can accept each

other by putting aside our smalldifferences for the good of theprofession. The leadership teamsbelieve that failure to move for-ward is not an option because, inthe end, it will be the clients whosuffer. Licensing has led our pro-fession in a wider direction,whereby we brought a new, non-

medical, less pathologized ap-proach to mental health. But ifwe are not careful, our profes-sional cousins — psychologyand social work — may steal ourown strengths and contributionsright out from under us.”

Counseling Today will contin-ue to provide updates on the

progress of “20/20: A Vision forthe Future of Counseling.” �

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Jonathan Rollins is the editor-in-chief of CounselingToday. E-mail commentsabout this article tojrollins@counseling.org.

profession and bridging multi-cultural talk with action toincreasing the number of practi-tioners in leadership roles anddeveloping a counseling thinktank. But much of the discussioncentered around strengtheningcounselor identity and haltingfragmentation of the profession.One delegate voiced the needfor counseling entities tobecome “issue-driven instead ofturf-driven.”

As the 20/20 summit wounddown, Gladding asked the dele-gates about their vision for thecounseling profession in theyear 2020. Among the respons-es, delegates voiced hope thatthe profession would be:� More unified and synergetic� The first group prospective

clients think of when theyneed therapy

� Offering the most cost-effec-tive, nonpathologizing formof treatment

� Leading the way for socialjustice by making qualitycounseling services availableto all people in society

� Achieving common groundwith portability and licensureacross the statesAsked for his impressions of

the summit meetings in Phoenixand Montréal, Kaplan said, “Ihave been very impressed. Thedelegates have worked hard todelineate the issues that need tobe addressed to move the pro-fession forward. There has beena clear consensus, with only onedissenting voice, that counselingneeds to view itself as one unit-ed profession with a variety ofspecializations. This wouldbring us into balance with physi-cians, lawyers, nurses and manyother professions.”

Mascari also believes thecounseling summits have beenproductive but readily acknowl-edges that much hard work andmany tough decisions lie ahead.“Several people at the sessionssaid if this summit is going tomove forward and have any pos-itive outcomes, we are all goingto need to be willing to give upsomething,” he said. “What thatsomething is remains to be seen.… There are some complexissues that we need to address,making this process not an easyone. However, we all need totake a risk if we are to make sig-nificant progress toward ourfuture as a profession.”

“We know where we shouldbe, where it would be in our bestinterests to be as a profession,”he continued. “The difficult partis the gulf that exists in between,the areas of risk where eachinterested party has something to