Publishing International Counseling Articles

This article begins with a rationale for including international articles in the Journal of Counseling & Development. Then, 2 general categories of international articles are described. First are articles that provide a general overview of counseling in a particular country. The 2nd category is more general and might involve international counseling research, counseling practice, or theoretical issues. A list of English‐language international journals is also included.     

A Meta-Theoretical Framework for Counselling People of African Ancestry: An Ecologically Oriented Response to the Special Section Articles

This article is a review of the preceding six articles included in the Special Section related to the subject of counselling people of African ancestry. The major objective was to ascertain whether any recurring themes might be identified, and whether these might contribute to developing a meta-theoretical perspective for counseling people of African ancestry. Two theoretical strands common to the six articles have been identified: (a) the ecological-transactional model and (b) the self-determination theory. A multicultural perspective appears to best characterize effective counseling practice in African settings.     

Certification of Specialties: Not If,But How

The guest editorial and featured articles have established the fact of counseling specialties and also that counselors have no clear or consistent scheme to recognize professional specialization. If counselors expect external recognition of and respect for their credentials, the credentials first must be recognized and understood by counselors. The experiences of other professions suggest strategies, but counselors must determine their own way of recognizing specialties without denying counselors' common identity. The profession and practice of counseling will be strengthened if all counselors have a minimum foundation of counseling knowledge and competencies and build accepted specializations on that foundation. The counseling profession must distinguish among work settings, professional interests, and specializations as a prerequisite to a coherent scheme of recognizing specialties.     

Multilevel modeling: overview and applications to research in counseling psychology

Multilevel modeling (MLM) is rapidly becoming the standard method of analyzing nested data, for example, data from students within multiple schools, data on multiple clients seen by a smaller number of therapists, and even longitudinal data. Although MLM analyses are likely to increase in frequency in counseling psychology research, many readers of counseling psychology journals have had only limited exposure to MLM concepts. This paper provides an overview of MLM that blends mathematical concepts with examples drawn from counseling psychology. This tutorial is intended to be a first step in learning about MLM; readers are referred to other sources for more advanced explorations of MLM. In addition to being a tutorial for understanding and perhaps even conducting MLM analyses, this paper reviews recent research in counseling psychology that has adopted a multilevel framework, and it provides ideas for MLM approaches to future research in counseling psychology.     

Current Findings Regarding the Effectiveness of Counseling: Implications for Practice

Research on the effectiveness of counseling is reviewed, and conclusions are drawn about the consequences for professional practice. The research literature clearly shows that counseling is effective in relation to no-treatment and placebo control conditions. The effects of counseling seem to be relatively lasting. These effects are attained in relatively brief time periods, with the percentage of clients who show substantial improvement increasing as the number of counseling sessions increases. There continues to be little evidence of specific efficacy for particular techniques or counseling theories, and a small portion of clients seem to deteriorate while undergoing, and perhaps because of, counseling interventions.     

Introduction to the Special Section on Teaching,Training, and Supervision in Personality and Psychological Assessment

This special section contains empirical and conceptual articles pertaining to the broad topic of teaching, training, and supervision of assessment. Despite some evidence of a decline in recent decades, assessment remains a defining practice of professional psychologists in many subfields, including clinical, counseling, school, and neuropsychology, that consumes a consequential proportion of their time. To restore assessment to its rightful place of prominence, a clear agenda needs to be developed for advancing teaching and training methods, increasing instruction to state-of-the-art methods, and defining aims that could be elucidated through empirical inquiry. The 7 articles in this special section provide a developmental perspective of these issues that collectively provide practical tools for instructors and begin to set the stage for a research agenda in this somewhat neglected area of study that is vital to the identity of professional psychology. Additionally, 2 comments are provided by distinguished figures in the field concerning the implications of the articles in the special section to health services psychology and the competencies-based movement in applied psychology.     

Research in Counseling: A 10‐Year Review to Inform Practice

This study reviewed 4,457 articles from 1998 to 2007 in American Counseling Association division‐affiliated journals to identify research articles published in counseling; 1,139 articles (25.6%) were quantitatively research based. The authors provide details related to quantitative research publications, including individual journal contribution to the research base, focus areas for research, and independent and dependent variables highlighted by researchers. One summary finding was that only 6% of counseling research articles explored effectiveness of counseling interventions.     

Identifying Dynamics of Counseling Leadership: A Content Analysis Study

The authors synthesized counseling leadership literature to identify themes of counseling leadership. Using an inductive approach to content analysis, the authors analyzed 11 empirical articles, 9 conceptual articles, and 13 leadership profiles. Results yielded 24 emergent leadership themes that were sorted into 3 groups. Findings pave the way for more comprehensive research on counseling leadership and allow for increased intentionality in teaching, training, and practicing counseling leadership.     

Gerontological Counseling Trends in Adultspan Journal: 1999–2019

Using quantitative content analysis, we categorized 76 out of 154 articles (49.35%) published in Adultspan Journal from 1999 to 2019 as focused on gerontological counseling. This study explored publication trends for these articles and compared results with a larger study (Fullen et al., 2019) on publication trends for gerontological counseling across all counseling‐related journals.     

Adverse Childhood Experiences: A 20-Year Content Analysis of American Counseling Association and American School Counselor Association Journals

The purpose of this content analysis was to illustrate trends related to the use of the term adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), or terms related to the 10 components of ACEs, within 140 peer-reviewed articles published in 22 journals affiliated with the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) between 1998 and 2018. Of the 9,120 articles published in the 22 ACA- and ASCA-affiliated journals in that time, only three articles (0.03%) explicitly mentioned the term adverse childhood experiences in the title, abstract, or keywords. Authors of 93 journal articles mentioned terms related to the original 10 categories of ACEs 104 times (1.0% of all published articles). The need for consistent language across research and practice is highlighted. Implications include ways that the counseling field may benefit from an increased clarity and focus around ACEs.     

Genetic Counseling: Implications for Community Counselors

A special issue of the Journal of Health Psychology (Vol. 7, No. 2, 2002) was reviewed. The articles covered a variety of qualitative studies conducted using an interpretive phenomenological analysis method to examine the interviews with people who had received genetic testing and counseling. Implications for the broader counseling field were also presented.     

Meta‐Analysis of Anorexia Nervosa Counseling Outcome Studies From 1990 to 2015

This meta‐analysis of 92 anorexia nervosa counseling articles examined the effectiveness of counseling in reducing symptoms of anorexia nervosa at termination and the longest follow‐up assessments. Treatment‐as‐usual studies showed no effect to small effects at both posttest and follow‐up assessments, wait‐list studies showed small effects at posttest and medium effects at follow‐up, and single‐group uncontrolled studies showed medium to large effects at posttest and medium effects at follow‐up. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Anecdotes for Practitioners

The purpose of this section is to allow our readers the chance to publish “anecdotes” concerning cases they have dealt with as counseling professionals. Stories about problems that you handled, either successfully or unsuccessfully, news of new programs or procedures, or comments on what is happening in the world of counseling—all are appropriate topics for upcoming issues. If you are or have been involved in something you think is interesting, write it down, and don't worry about the prose—that's our job. Send your material to Katy Bennight, 656 S.W. Fourth Terrace, Florida City, Florida 33034.     

Anecdotes for Practitioners

The purpose of this section is to allow our readers the chance to publish “anecdotes” concerning cases they have dealt with as counseling professionals. Stories about problems that you handled, either successfully or unsuccessfully, news of new programs or procedures, or comments on what is happening in the world of counseling—all are appropriate topics for upcoming issues. If you are or have been involved in something you think is interesting, write it down, and don't worry about the prose—that's our job. Send your material to Katy Bennight, 656 S.W. Fourth Terrace, Florida City, Florida 33034.     

Anecdotes for Practitioners

The purpose of this section is to allow our readers the chance to publish “anecdotes” concerning cases they have dealt with as counseling professionals. Stories about problems that you handled, either successfully or unsuccessfully, news of new programs or procedures, or comments on what is happening in the world of counseling—all are appropriate topics for upcoming issues. If you are or have been involved in something you think is interesting, write it down, and don't worry about the prose—that's our job. Send your material to Katy Bennight, 656 S.W. Fourth Terrace, Florida City, Florida 33034.     

Anecdotes for Practitioners

The purpose of this section is to allow our readers the chance to publish “anecdotes” concerning cases they have dealt with as counseling professionals. Stories about problems that you handled, either successfully or unsuccessfully, new of new programs or procedures, or comments on what is happening in the world of counseling—all are appropriate topics for upcoming issues. If you are or have been involved in something you think is interesting, write it down, and don't worry about the prose—that's our job. Send your material to Katy Bennight, 656 S. W. Fourth Terrace, Florida City, Florida 33034.     

Anecdotes for Practitioners

The purpose of this section is to allow our readers the chance to publish “anecdotes” concerning cases they have dealt with as counseling professionals. Stories about problems that you handled, either successfully or unsuccessfully, new of new programs or procedures, or comments on what is happening in the world of counseling—all are appropriate topics for upcoming issues. If you are or have been involved in something you think is interesting, write it down, and don't worry about the prose—that's our job. Send your material to Katy Bennight, 656 S. W. Fourth Terrace, Florida City, Florida 33034.     

A Genetic Counseling Intervention to Facilitate Family Communication About Inherited Conditions

This paper describes the development and implementation of the first intervention to facilitate family communication of genetic information based on a genetic counseling model of practice. The intervention is telephone-based and therefore designed to complement face-to-face genetic counseling consultations. It was developed by firstly reviewing the literature and a model of genetic counseling practice, leading to definition of seven core principles underpinning the intervention. A counseling framework based on these principles was developed through iterative role playing and review, tested for consistency with good practice and piloted on ten study participants. It was found to be feasible to implement and consistent with good genetic counseling practice. Implementation included training of the genetic counselors who would deliver the intervention as part of a randomized controlled trial. Noteworthy deviations from good genetic counseling practice were observed, with unexpected additional insights into the ‘black box’ of genetic counseling that may have wider implications and would benefit from further investigation. The intervention is currently being evaluated in a randomized controlled trial, to assess its impact on the number of family members attending genetic services.