Using Counselor Training and Collaborative Programming Strategies in Working With International Students

This article offers an overview of the adjustment concerns of international students in the United States and explores venues for inclusion of this population in multicultural training and counselor competency development opportunities for graduate students. Counselor educators need to provide awareness and knowledge about the issues faced by international students within graduate course work and training models. This will ensure that counselor trainees are competent within a multicultural framework to understand the unique issues of international students and respond by providing culturally sensitive counseling services and programming. A model of programming implemented at a private university that provided a training opportunity for counselors‐in‐training is highlighted. Considerations in designing collaborative programs are also discussed. Este artículo da un resumen de las preocupaciones de ajustamiento de estudiantes intemacionales en los Estados Unidos y explora avenidas para incluir esta población en el entrenamiento y desarollo multicultural de estudiantes de consejería. Educadores de consejeros necesitan proveer consciencia e información sobre las situaciones enfrentadas por estudiantes intemacionales en el entrenamiento de estudiantes graduados. Esto asegurara la competencia multicultural de los estudiantes para que así entiendan las necesidades unicas de los estudiantes intemacionales y puedan proveer sensibilidad cultural en la consejería y programación de servicios. Este artículo describe un modelo de programación implementado en una universidad privada que entrenó a estudiantes de consejería. Además se discuten consideraciones para el diseño de programas colaborativos.     

Down with the Hierarchies

Evidence hierarchies are widely used to assess evidence in systematic reviews of medical studies. I give several arguments against the use of evidence hierarchies. The problems with evidence hierarchies are numerous, and include methodological shortcomings, philosophical problems, and formal constraints. I argue that medical science should not employ evidence hierarchies, including even the latest and most-sophisticated of such hierarchies.     

Less means more for pigeons but not always

When humans are asked to judge the value of a set of objects of excellent quality, they often give this set higher value than those same objects with the addition of some of lesser quality. This is an example of the affect heuristic, often referred to as the less-is-more effect. Monkeys and dogs, too, have shown this suboptimal effect. But in the present experiments, normally hungry pigeons chose optimally: a preferred food plus a less--preferred food over a more-preferred food alone. In Experiment 2, however, pigeons on a less-restricted diet showed the suboptimal less-is-more effect. Choice on control trials indicated that the effect did not result from the novelty of two food items versus one. The effect in the less-food-restricted pigeons appears to result from the devaluation of the combination of the food items by the presence of the less-preferred food item. The reversal of the effect under greater food restriction may occur because, as motivation increases, the value of the less-preferred food increases faster than the value of the more-preferred food, thus decreasing the difference in value between the two foods.     

Integrating flow theory and the serious leisure perspective into mental health counseling

This article explores how flow theory and the serious leisure perspective (SLP) can be integrated into mental health counseling. Although different counseling models have acknowledged the role of leisure in the counseling process, leisure is largely an unknown and superficial concept in the mental health counseling literature. Four broad-based pragmatic ideas regarding how flow theory and the SLP can be integrated into the counseling process include mental health counselors (1) understanding the concepts of serious leisure, casual leisure, project-based leisure, flow (enjoyment), and hedonistic pleasure; (2) becoming aware of various assessment instruments that measure flow and serious leisure; (3) using the provision characteristics of entering flow into the counseling process; and (4) empowering clients to becoming community change agents through serious leisure pursuit, resulting in flow experiences.