CS Features – Expert Interviews, Guides, Professional Advocacy & Research in Counseling

Joining a counseling profession is about more than understanding licensing requirements and reading step-by-step guides. This is a profession committed to continued education, listening, and learning. To be a successful counselor or therapist, you have to be engaged with and aware of the larger conversations in the community.

Whether you are just starting your counseling career or already working in the field, CS features cover topics relevant to you. It holds scholarship and resource guides, expert interviews, tips for avoiding burnout and compassion fatigue, discussions of the latest academic research, and detailed analyses of the most pressing advocacy issues within counseling professions. Overall, we bring you into the conversation around the biggest issues in counseling and professions today.

Guide to Bilingual & Culturally Diverse Counseling Careers

Calendar Icon 08/03/22 Matt Zbrog

This guide to bilingual and culturally diverse counseling careers includes information on degree and certificate programs that specialize in treating diverse and underserved populations.

Terminations: The Importance of a Good Ending for Therapy

Calendar Icon 06/23/22 Lisa Hutchison, LMHC

As a counselor, you hope to have a good ending in which the therapist and client have a final session to say goodbye and discuss aftercare plans. This is not always the case. To increase the odds of a good ending, termination must be discussed throughout the counseling process, starting at the first session.

The Importance of Minority Mental Health Month

Calendar Icon 06/16/22 Catherine Mosley

Recent acts of racism and discrimination have opened simmering mental health wounds and further amplified the stress minorities face on a daily basis. The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, George Floyd’s brutal murder, and the proliferation of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic are just a few examples.

Guide to Integrated Behavioral Health Careers & Schooling

Calendar Icon 05/26/22 Matt Zbrog

Also known as behavioral health integration, integrated care, collaborative care, or primary care behavioral health, integrated behavioral health exemplifies a wider trend in healthcare to shift focus away from siloed specialties and towards whole-person care.

PTSD Awareness Month Expert Interview & Advocacy Guide

Calendar Icon 05/23/22 Matt Zbrog

Around 12 million Americans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Once referred to as shell shock and combat fatigue, PTSD is often associated with military veterans, but it also affects survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence, car accidents, and other forms of trauma.

The Dawn of Social Robots

Calendar Icon 05/11/22 Laura Freberg, PhD

Social robots designed to interact with humans naturally are no longer just a favorite feature of science fiction but are likely to be part of our everyday reality quite soon. How are we likely to react to the social robots we meet?

Questioning the Assumption of Normality: Cisnormative, Transnormative & More

Calendar Icon 05/03/22 Alex Stitt, LMHC

Libraries worldwide contain dusty manuscripts detailing the finer points of cultural etiquette. While most of these antiquated manuals have been retired to the shelf, contemporary society still maintains unwritten codes of conduct with the pressure of social performance.

Writing For Therapy: What to Know About Therapeutic Journaling

Calendar Icon 04/28/22 Lisa Hutchison, LMHC

Journaling is one self-care method counselors can recommend to their clients. Clients can use this tool on their own and incorporate these entries into a therapy session. Counselors refer to journaling in therapy as writing therapy, journal therapy or expressive art therapy.

Mental Health Month Expert Interview & Advocacy Guide

Calendar Icon 04/20/22 Matt Zbrog

It is a well-established fact that the pandemic has devastated America’s mental health. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, one in five adults in the US had experienced mental illness last year. Since then, the rate has increased to an estimated one in three. Racial and socioeconomic inequality in policy and practice exacerbate the issue further: today, only one in three Black adults with mental health issues receives care.

Having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in the Age of Covid

Calendar Icon 04/12/22 Laura Freberg, PhD

Self-compassion is never a bad idea, but it can be particularly helpful when we’re in a situation that brings out strong, negative emotions. Instead of berating yourself for feeling negative emotions and anxiety, treat yourself with respect and self-kindness.