Counseling and Mental Health Care in Palestine

The authors provide a brief overview of counseling and mental health care in Palestine, including their history and a summary of their current status. Finally, a discussion is presented of future trends in the development of the profession with regard to recent changes in the region.     

Positive Irrational Beliefs and Mental Health

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - This study examined the relationship between positive irrational beliefs, or positive illusions, and mental health. It attempted to...     

Spiritual Maturity and Mental Health: Implications for Counseling

Evidence was found to support the validity of Genia's (1997) spiritual maturity typology. Participants (N = 256) were categorized as spiritually growth-oriented, transitional, dogmatic, or underdeveloped. Those in the underdeveloped and dogmatic groups seemed to be more emotionally distressed than those in the growth oriented group. The authors also formed a group, based on scores above the mean on both the Dissociation Scale and the Sexual Abuse Trauma Index (SATI) of the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40 (TSC-40; Elliott & Briere, 1992), that they hypothesized were traumatized in childhood. They found that those individuals, compared to the nontraumatized persons, experienced lower levels of spiritual support and were more symptomatic on mental health measures. The traumatized women, especially, experienced psychological distress, particularly in areas of depression, anxiety, and sexual problems. Although trauma generally was associated negatively with spiritual development, some traumatized persons also scored among the spiritually growth oriented, suggesting that such trauma is not associated in all cases with a detrimental effect in the process of spiritual development.     

积极心理健康的内涵解析

学术界一般把积极心理学视野下的心理健康称为积极心理健康,它是当代心理健康相关学科发展的一个潮流.积极心理健康认为消除或摆脱了各种心理问题的人并不一定就意味着心理健康,心理健康还意味着正向力量或积极品质的产生与增加,因此,心理健康相关学科在研究人的各种心理问题的同时,也应该花相同精力或时间去研究人的积极力量和积极品质.在研究思路上,积极心理健康也表现出了一个非常明显的新特点,强调心理健康研究要从以关注个体总的心理状态为主的研究思路转向于以关注个体内差异为主的研究思路.     

Integrating Career and Mental Health Counseling: Necessity and Strategies

Individuals seeking counseling might not recognize the interconnectedness of health, mental health, work, and life concerns. Counselors, however, need to be mindful that a person's wellness is interwoven with their work, life roles, and health. Research supports the interrelationship of career development and mental health as well as the effectiveness of an integrated approach to mental health and career counseling. An integrated approach from an ecological counseling perspective is proposed for conceptualizing client issues and intervention strategies.     

Clinical and Mental Health Issues in Counseling the Gifted Individual

Research over the past several decades has identified several unique characteristics and experiences of gifted individuals that have implications for counselors. This article describes internal and external factors that contribute to gifted individuals' nonnormal lived experience and that may require counselors' specific attention to work effectively with gifted clients on clinical and mental health issues. These factors are applied to 4 issues: unhealthy perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and suicidality.     

Mental Health Counseling: Past,Present, and Future

This article examines the significant events in the history of mental. health care that have contributed to the development of a specialty within the counseling profession referred to as mental health counseling. The development of credentials for the specialty and the issues currently facing mental health counseling are discussed, and a perspective on directions for the future is offered.     

Counseling and Mental Health Care for Transgender Adults and Loved Ones

SUMMARY

Increasingly, transgender individuals and loved ones (partners, family, and friends) are seeking assistance from mental health professionals working in the community rather than in university or hospital-based gender identity clinics. Drawing on published literature specific to transgender mental health, interviews with expert clinicians, the authors' clinical experience, and three key guiding principles (a transgender-affirmative approach, client-centered care, and a commitment to harm reduction), we suggest protocols for the clinician providing mental health services in the community setting. Practice areas discussed include assessment and treatment of gender concerns, trans-specific mental health issues, and trans-specific elements in general counseling of transgender individuals and their loved ones.     

Mental Health Literacy and Peer-to-Peer Counseling Referrals Among Community College Students

Mental health literacy (MHL) has utility for promoting peer-to-peer referrals to mental health support services among university students. However, there is a gap in the extant literature about the potential usefulness of MHL for supporting the mental health of community college students, a population facing a number of mental health conditions. The authors examined the construct validity and the utility of 3 dimensions of MHL as predictors of peer-to-peer referrals to the counseling center among community college students. Results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the dimensionality of the instrumentation and a hierarchical logistic regression analysis revealed that MHL was a significant positive predictor of peer-to-peer referrals to the counseling center. Implications for counseling practice and future research are discussed.     

Social Change, Positive Mental Health, and Psychological Androgyny

Recent changes in the timing of life stages, the length of the lifespan, labor force participation, marriage and fertility are described. It is argued that highly-differentiated sex-role orientations are less suited to current conditions than are androgynous orientations, especially for women. If this is true, then developing androgynous sex-role orientations may promote greater adaptability and positive mental health.     

Using Interpreters in Mental Health Counseling: A Literature Review and Recommendations

Limited understanding of the challenges inherent in counselor‐interpreter collaboration may potentially result in inadequate or ineffective mental health services. To provide guidelines for effective mental health assistance of clients who are English language learners, the authors review the literature regarding the partnership between counselors and interpreters. Suggestions for collaborative practices, including pre‐ and postsession directives, are included. Una comprensión limitada de los desafíos inherentes a la colaboración entre consejero e intérprete podría dar como resultado un servicio de salud mental inadecuado o ineficaz. Con el propósito de ofrecer pautas para una asistencia eficaz a la salud mental de aquellos clientes que están aprendiendo inglés, los autores revisan la literatura sobre la asociación entre consejeros e intér‐pretes. Se incluyen sugerencias para prácticas de colaboración, incluyendo directivas para antes y después de las sesiones.     

诠释与转换：积极心理健康及其当代理解

积极心理健康是积极心理学理论系统的一个重要组成部分,也是积极心理学理论本身在心理健康领域的一种应用。积极心理健康以积极为核心观念,以人的积极品质为研究对象,注重人的个体差异的研究思路,引领和推动传统心理健康从关注人的消极品质转向人的积极潜力,从而使心理健康的主题既符合时代潮流又具有深厚的思想底蕴。     

Mental Imagery in Counseling

Heightened interest in conscious mind phenomena such as mental imagery has been evident among professionals and lay people in recent years. In this article the author discusses some of the uses of mental imagery techniques in counseling. Special emphasis is given to the potential of mental images in the tapping of creative energy and other positive aspects of the “higher self that may enhance daily living. These uses of mental imagery have significant implications for contemporary counselors.     

Making Change Visible: The Possibilities in Assessing Mental Health Counseling Outcomes

The product of mental health counseling, unlike that of most professions, remains invisible to most people, leaving counselors vulnerable in a competitive market. The author argues that clinicians should recognize the value of, understand, and begin using outcome measures in their work. Research focusing on critical problems in psychotherapy outcome instruments, advances that have been made to counter those problems, areas of consensus among outcome researchers, and practical recommendations for using outcome measures are examined.     

Addiction Competencies in the 2009 CACREP Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program Standards

The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs developed addiction competencies for clinical mental health counseling students. This article highlights these competencies, provides an overview of current addiction training, and describes methods to integrate addiction education into curricula.     

Transforming School Counseling to Serve the Mental Health Needs of At-Risk Youth

School counselors have an important part to play in helping schools respond to the increasing number of students whose mental health needs place them at risk for school failure. This article identifies the shortcomings of the current developmental guidance and counseling service delivery model as it relates to work with at-risk youth. In addition, a transformed model is proposed, with suggestions for changes in program organization and planning, school counselor role and function, and skills and expertise. Potential barriers to change are also identified.     

Serving Clients With Hearing Loss: Best Practices in Mental Health Counseling

This article examines the risk factors and characteristics of clients with hearing loss, including inequitable access to education and mental health care services, financial barriers, communication problems, and societal discrimination. Culturally specific counseling approaches and techniques for mental health counselors serving clients with hearing loss are presented, with a focus on building counselor competency and client employment skills. The use of interpreters in therapeutic settings is also discussed.