Counseling African American Men: A Contextualized Humanistic Perspective

Historically, the humanity of African American men has been attacked in a cruel and vicious manner. African American men have been categorized as animalistic beings without intellectual or moral qualities. In this article, it is argued that a contextualized humanistic approach can offer counselors an important corrective to the typical dehumanized view of African American men so often found in the social science literature and popular media.     

A Maslovian Counseling Model

With Maslow's hierarchy as a basis, the model expands to provide a structure for setting goals in counseling cases and overall programs. Fourteen kinds of client concerns are identified, and suggestions are made for using these 14 categories. The article includes specific suggestions for using the model in diagnosis, evaluation, counselor education, and research.     

Counseling and Human Sexuality: A Training Model

In recent years sexuality has been broadly defined as a fundamental dimension of personality. Mental health practitioners need to respond to the increased awareness of human sexuality as a vital aspect of personal development. To date, few programs or workshops assist mental health counselors in developing the necessary skills to confront sexual concerns in the counseling relationship. This article presents a counseling and human sexuality course model that provides counselors with an information base in human sexuality and assists them in exploring the emotional aspects of sexuality. This course model assumes that mental health counselors will provide a valuable service to their client populations once they have become more willing and able to explore sexual conflicts.     

Letter Therapy: A Model for Enhancing Counseling Intervention

Based on 15 letters between a counselor and a female client, this article outlines and discusses a unique letter therapy process, which is loosely adapted from the Morita Therapy approach to counseling. The five-step Letter therapy approach consists of 1) opening up, 2) focusing on life themes, 3) redirecting toward strengths, 4) reinforcing actions, and 5) affirming a positive attitude toward life. Letter writing has the potential of being used by counselors either in conjunction with face-to-face counseling or as a separate therapeutic method.     

A Developmental Model For Counseling Groups

Students taking a course in Group Guidance participated in group counseling as an adjunct experience to the course. The counseling sessions were tape recorded and later analyzed according to an affect-topic classification. This paper presents a theoretical discussion of the development of one of the counseling groups, and the results of the analysis of the recorded group sessions.     

A Model for Individual Career Counseling

The focus of the article is on a visual model for individual career counseling. The model takes into account psychological, social, and economic factors and describes decision making as a journey with four discernible stages.     

A Relational Approach to Career Counseling: Theoretical Integration and Practical Application

This article reviews the current status of career theory in practice and presents a theoretical overview of relational theory and its logical extension to the career domain. Despite the emergence of literature regarding the interconnectedness of career progress and the quality of relationships in one's life (e.g., D. L. Blustein, 2001; D. L. Blustein, M. S. Prezioso, & D. E. P. Schultheiss, 1995; D. E. P. Schultheiss, H. M. Kress, A. J. Manzi, & J. M. Glasscock, 2001), counseling practice is limited by the absence of a meaningful approach to intervene in clients' relational and career worlds. The relational career counseling approach moves counseling toward a contextually based relational perspective to facilitating career progress. This approach is illustrated with a case example.     

A Multicontextual Model of Counseling: Bridging Brevity and Diversity

Practice trends in counseling have emphasized the values of brevity and diversity in the delivery of services. In this article the author reviews central elements of brief therapy and multicultural counseling, highlighting the tension created by their differing developmental assumptions. Drawing on recent science and practice literature, the article outlines and illustrates an integrative, multicontextual model of counseling that bridges these important trends by intervening at the interface between individuals and their physical, social, and cultural contexts.     

A Parallax View of Counseling: The Social Influence Model

Heppner, Paul, & Heesacker, Martin. Interpersonal Influence Process in Real-Life Counseling: Investigating Client Perceptions, Counselor Experience Level, and Counselor Power Over Time. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1982, 29, 215–223. Hackman, Hollis, & Claiborn, Charles. An Attributional Approach to Counselor Attractiveness. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1982, 29, 224–231.     

A Model of Stress and Counseling Interventions

Current popular interest in stress and its effects on physical and psychological functioning has implications for counselors and clients. Although many counselors have not been trained in the physiological and medical aspects of stress, they do have skills that can be appropriately applied to the alleviation and modification of environmental and internal sources of stress. This article describes a model to aid counselors in understanding stress and in designing and implementing counseling interventions to mediate its effects.     

Grief Counseling: A Funeral Home—Based Model

Loss and grief are issues that require special understanding and skills from the counselor. This article describes how one funeral home implemented an innovative response to loss involving death by inaugurating a thorough professional grief counseling program for its clientele and the community it serves.