Creativity and Counseling

This article distinguishes between curative, restorative psychotherapy, and educative, growth-oriented counseling. The authors show how the processes and methods of creativity in scientific and artistic pursuits are similar to those of personal growth and counseling. They also discuss divergent production, deferred judgment, preparation, incubation, illumination, elaboration, and the balance between thought and emotion in terms of creativity and counseling. In this article, counselors can find new methods of facilitating creativity.     

Genomic Counseling: Next Generation Counseling

Personalized medicine continues to expand with the development and increasing use of genome-based testing. While these advances present new opportunities for diagnosis and risk assessment, they also present challenges to clinical delivery. Genetic counselors will play an important role in ushering in this new era of testing; however, it will warrant a shift from traditional genetic counseling to “genomic counseling.” This shift will be marked by a move from reactive genetic testing for diagnosis of primarily single-gene diseases to proactive genome-based testing for multiple complex diseases for the purpose of disease prevention. It will also require discussion of risk information for a number of diseases, some of which may have low relative risks or weak associations, and thus, may not substantially impact clinical care. Additionally, genomic counselors will expand their roles, particularly in the area of health promotion to reduce disease risk. This additional role will require a style of counseling that is more directive than traditional counseling and require greater knowledge about risk reducing behaviors and disease screening.     

Perceptions of Clients and Counseling Professionals Regarding Spirituality in Counseling

Although current research indicates that psychotherapeutic change both affects and is affected by spiritual concerns, relatively little is known about the degree to which spirituality is used as an intervention in counseling and how it is perceived by clients and mental health professionals. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of clients and professionals regarding the use of spirituality in counseling. The results suggest that more professionals may be using spirituality in counseling than has previously been reported.     

Epistemology and School Counseling

Because a counselor's interactions with his clients should be an out-growth of his philosophical commitments, he must grapple with certain epistemological questions: (a) Can human beings know the extramental world or merely their own ideas? (b) Is human knowledge a valid representation of the extramental world? (c) Can human beings reach agreement about the nature of extramental realities? The counselor can assume two possible stances. First, there is the “realist” position which states that there is an extramental world, we can achieve valid knowledge of it, and the knowledge of various observers can agree. Second is the “phenomenalist” position: There is an extramental world, but no one can achieve valid knowledge of it, nor can various observers easily agree regarding its nature. The realist counselor should help his client perceive his problem situation as it “really” is and as it appears to others. The phenomenalist counselor cannot do this instead, he can only try to enter the client's subjectivity and to help him deepen and enrich his unique perception of the problem situation.     

Psychological Aspects of Genetic Counseling. IX. Teaching and Counseling

The goals, philosophies, and procedures of the teaching and counseling approaches to genetic counseling are differentiated and compared. The teaching approach, inherited from academic practitioners earlier in this century, appears to remain the dominant form of contemporary practice. With the introduction of more nonphysician professionals, attempts are being made to combine a teaching model with counseling procedures. The goals of the two models are conspicuously different; one attempts to end up with an educated counselee whereas the other hopes to leave the latter psychologically more autonomous and functional. Both models have strengths and limitations. The teaching model is essentially a form of health education, not counseling, and, with some exceptions, tends to fulfill its goals. The strategy of teaching, however, tends to undermine the psychological self-directedness of counselees and thus interferes with the processes they need to draw on to make autonomous decisions. The strength of the counseling model is in helping counselees reach decisions and deal with the personal meaning of information. However, applying this model makes huge demands on the professional. Greater attention needs to be given by training programs to the pedagogical and counseling skills genetic counselors may need in their professional work.     

Teaching the Multicultural Counseling Competencies and Revised Career Counseling Competencies Simultaneously

The need for all counselor trainees to simultaneously acquire the Multicultural Counseling Competencies and the revised Career Counseling Competencies is discussed, and the interface between them is examined. The authors recommend the development of simulation and technology resources so that both sets of competencies can be implemented for ongoing learning in counselor education. La necesidad que todos los estudiantes de consejería adquieran simultaneamente las Competencias de Consejería Multicultural y las competencias revisadas de la Consejería sobre Carreras, es discutida. La relación entre ambas competencias es examinada. Los autores recomiendan el desarrollo de recursos para simular y el uso de la tecnología para que ambos conjuntos de competencias sean implementadas para el aprendizaje progresivo en la educación consejeros.     

Child Development and Counseling

Elkind outlines three constructs, the assumptive reality of childhood and the imaginary audience and personal fable of adolescence, which help explain normal as well as problem behavior. In dealing with individuals operating under the premises of these constructs, counselors are asked to accept the young person's view of reality as valid for him or her, but not necessarily for the counselor or others. To structure a new reality, they should not be shown they are wrong, but helped to distinguish between personal and social reality.     

Leisure Counseling and Consultation

Leisure counseling and consultation is a fairly new counseling specialty that is emerging from the field of recreation and volunteer placement while borrowing heavily from vocational counseling models and techniques. After presenting a brief history of the development of the field, the authors describe a working model of one approach to leisure counseling. The article concludes with a prediction that the field will move from its present focus on leisure alone to an integration of leisure with vocational counseling and planning.     

Counseling and moral change

Conclusion Counseling can be and often is an instrument of moral change. More precisely, we can say that as counseling approaches the point of being maximally successful, it produces significant personality change. This change is manifested in the moral sphere of life and is marked by the following characteristics: 1) the individual's moral perspective tends to become more adequate and realistic, 2) the individual's moral response tends to become more authentic, and 3) the individual's ability to be the locus of moral action and the object of divine forgiveness is increased and deepened. Each characteristic is a vital and essential contribution to morality in the deepest sense of that word, that is, to morality as authentic fulfillment of self within a community of persons.     

Counseling Competence and Perceptions

A motion picture test of counselor perceptions of counseling interview segments was developed in order to analyze change in trainee perceptions during a practicum, and to explore the relationship between counselor perceptions of others and counseling competence. Cross-validation results from a group of 30 NDEA Counseling and Guidance Institute trainees demonstrated a significant relationship between post-practicum counseling competence and both pre-practicum and post-practicum test scores. The test appears to be relatively independent of other commonly used selection criteria.     

Developmental Science and Counseling

Developmental counseling is a promising model integrating theory and practice. A. E. Ivey's (2000; A. E. Ivey & O. F. Goncalves, 1988) work is discussed as a template for proposing a more comprehensive developmental perspective. Where A. E. Ivey's model renders a case for cognition, the current article encompasses other developmental systems driving cognitive processes, such as attachment, self, and affect. A developmental systems theory is advanced as one possible solution to the limitations of available models. Application to case vignettes and a rethinking of style shift are offered.     

BRCA1 Testing: Genetic Counseling Protocol Development and Counseling Issues

This article discusses the genetic counseling protocols which were developed and counseling issues that have arisen in the first 2 years of evaluating a large kindred with a BRCA1 mutation. The rationale for the development of the genetic counseling protocols and specific genetic counseling visual aids are presented and discussed. The protocols and counseling aids can serve as models for other programs offering cancer susceptibility testing. The observations of study counselors about study subject concerns and responses to genetic testing at the time of the pretest and posttest counseling sessions are presented.