Digital Commons Network^™

Human Services Students Preferences For Master's Level Training, Tammi F. Dice, Mark C. Rehfuss

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Human Services students close to graduation are seeking employment in the field, but many are also considering their future career paths and the training needed to reach their long-term career goals. Knowing if bachelor's level students desire graduate degrees, which focus they prefer, and how they would like to pursue the degrees may contribute to the decision-making of educators, employers, and students. This exploratory study, therefore, examined human services students' preferences for master's level training. Students' responses reflected preferences for several types of master's programs, direct acceptance, and online delivery. These themes and their implications for educators, employers, and students …

Compassion And Self-Compassion: Conceptualization Of And Application To Adjustment To Disability, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

For many, disability may ignite feelings of grief, sadness, loss, and/or emotional pain. Others discover they harbor negative or self-critical thoughts and beliefs (i.e., blame) which compounds and complicates the personal coping process. Adjustment to disability models exist to help persons with disabilities and professionals understand or explain their negative thoughts, feelings, and experiences; yet, they do not overtly discuss or address emerging skills and approaches such as compassion and selfcompassion as a part of the disability adjustment process. In an effort to change this trend, an eclectic theoretical model which infuses self-compassion and compassion-based techniques has been developed. Rehabilitation …

Spirituality Transformative Psychotherapy: Repairing Spiritual Damage And Facilitating Extreme Well-Being (Review), Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Spirituality is personal and is an individualized journey. For some, it is connected to religious beliefs and practices (i.e., Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism). For others, spirituality is not and may be about personal learning, insight, and transformation. Still others may view spirituality as a part one’s cultural heritage and ethnic background. While some people believe in God or a Higher Being, others do not. When hurt and trauma occur, the situation often becomes more complex because peoples’ beliefs and values are challenged and brought into question. Some may “fall away” from their beliefs or “upbringing” and feel that they have …

Just World Beliefs, Identity Development, And Social Justice Advocacy Of Counselor Trainees, Sara Rundlett

All Master's Theses

This was the first study exploring the relationship between the belief in a just world, identity development, and social justice advocacy (SJA). A mixed methods design was conducted using a nationwide sample of ninety-seven counselor-in-training participants. Hypotheses included positive correlation between identity development and SJA, negative correlation between belief in a just world and SJA, and negative correlation between belief in a just world and identity development. Results were not significant but provided implications for future research and counselor training programs.

Reliability And Stability Of The Six Question Disability Measure In The Current Population Survey: What The Data Can And Cannot Tell Us About Disability And Labor Force Participation, Jeffrey Joy Dr.

Theses and Dissertations

The Current Population Survey (CPS) has been a major source of disability data for public policy and research. The aim of this study was two-fold. First, the study examined the six disability measures added to the CPS in 2008 to determine if they are both a reliable and stable method of describing disability over a period of two survey administrations in a 12-month period. Second, this study then assessed the impact of disability upon labor force participation. This research used a subset of the respondents to the longitudinal CPS Annual Social and Economic Supplement; it included (N=11,721) respondents …

The Influence Of Feedback On Implicit Bias In A Sample Of Primarily Caucasian Women Counselors-In-Training, Branson L. Boykins

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine whether bogus cultural feedback influenced the presence of implicit racial bias in the clinical judgment of counselors-in-training. Participants were 193 master’s-level counselors-in-training, in which the majority were Caucasian women (57%). Three hypotheses guided the study. The first hypothesis focused on the influence of priming positive and negative feedback about cultural attitudes on a clinical case, regardless of the race or clarity of the case. The second and third hypotheses both focused on racial bias by examining the interaction between type of feedback, race, and ambiguity of diagnosis on participants’ clinical impressions of …

Workforce Innovation And Opportunity Act Implementation: Ethical Considerations For Counseling Practice, Christine Anderson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Vocational Rehabilitation program exists to assist individuals with disabilities to attain, secure and benefit from employment. The purpose of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), which included the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, is to empower individuals with disabilities to maximize employment. The Act was reauthorized as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014. The Act includes significant changes to rehabilitation service delivery including a stronger emphasis on services to youth and outreach to minority populations. Despite the changes, the Act is vague and does not include methods for implementation. Although the specifics for implementation of WIOA …

Counselor Education And Counseling Psychology 2016 News, College Of Education And Human Development

Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology News

• Vandiver is the Incoming Editor of the Journal of Black Psychology
• Adkison-Johnson Conducts Psychoeducational Parenting Group Project
• Two CECP Professors Deliver Culturally Responsive Education Training to KPS
• Dr. Jennifer Foster Works to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse
• Assistant Professor Publishes Journal Article
• Professor Joins Local Musicians for Performance at Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
• Four WMU grad programs among nation's top 50 in U.S. News ranking
• Counseling Psychology Student has Article Accepted for Publication
• Dr. Phillip Johnson Publishes Article in Journal of Counseling & Development
• Professor receives Lambda Leadership Award
• Professor of counseling psychology presents paper in Brazil
• 2016 CECP Awards Reception …

Professional Counseling's Alignment With The Core Competencies For Interprofessional Collaborative Practice, Kaprea F. Johnson, Miranda Mj Parries

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Previous findings show that there is a misconception of the counseling profession and a lack of awareness of their role in interprofessional collaboration; which may lead to underutilization of counselors for team based care. As an example, in 2009 six professional health related associations developed core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice and counseling associations were not involved in the development. This manuscript introduces the profession of counseling to others in medical health professions in hopes that similarities will bridge the gap between knowledge and future collaborative practice. The manuscript shows how the profession aligns with the core competencies for interprofessional …

Disability And Forgiveness: An Intervention To Promote Positive Coping For Persons With Disabilities, Susan Stuntzner, Angela Macdonald

Counseling Faculty Publications

Disability is an event that forever changes a person's life. Throughout the coping and adaptation process, many experience negative thoughts and feelings such as anger, anxiety, depression, and multiple forms of frustration. Some of these may be related to a disability, while others are by-products of the negative experiences, attitudes, and treatment of persons with disabilities. These include societal barriers and injustices and changes and losses that often accompany a disability. Counseling professionals can assist persons with disabilities in learning to improve their coping process by learning about approaches and, in this case, interventions to help promote healing and positive …

Resilience And Disability: Creation Of An Online Course For Professionals, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Resilience is an area of emerging interest among counselors, psychologists, and allied helping professionals. Much of this has occurred due to the advent of the Positive Psychology Movement. Despite this recent surge of interest, rehabilitation counseling has been well acquainted with factors and skills related to positive coping and adjustment among persons with disabilities. Yet, a recent survey conducted by the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification (CRCC) found that rehabilitation counselors reported an interest in learning about skills and techniques related to resilience. For this reason the author was asked to develop an on-line course for CRCC pertaining to resilience …

Cognitive Complexity, Mindfulness, And Reflection In Mental Health Professionals, Dharshini Goonetilleke

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

In this cross sectional quantitative investigation, the relationships among mental health professionals' cognitive complexity, mindfulness, and reflection were explored. To determine if there was a correlation between mindfulness and cognitive complexity, a Pearson's correlation was conducted: There was a strong positive correlation between mindfulness and cognitive complexity. To determine whether observing and describing (two key variables of mindfulness) could predict counselor overall cognitive complexity, a simultaneous multiple regression was conducted. The observing subscale significantly predicted counselor cognitive complexity and the describing subscale did not significantly predict mindfulness. To determine if there is a correlation between mindfulness and reflection, a Pearson's …

Hypnobirth: Theories And Practices For Healthcare Professionals By Yulia Watters (Review), Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Hypnobirth: Theories and Practices for Healthcare Professionals is a book written for mental health and medical professionals, and caregivers intimately involved in the birthing process of the expectant mother. It is intended to inform professionals and individuals about the relevance and role of hypnobirthing during the pregnancy and birthing process and to help them understand the connection between medical and alternative health practices. Because of this, professionals are provided with the opportunity to learn and understand that one approach (i.e., medical versus alternative practices) does not have to necessarily exclude the other and there is a place for both throughout …

Forgiveness And Disability: Reconsideration Of Forgiveness As A Vital Component Of The Rehabilitation Counseling Profession, Susan Stuntzner, Jacquelyn A. Dalton

Counseling Faculty Publications

Forgiveness and self-forgiveness is an area of growing interest in the allied helping professions. In recent years, the study of forgiveness has been expanded to a number of different populations. However, forgiveness as a construct, a model of understanding to cope with difficult and hurtful people, and as an intervention has not been fully considered and explored in the rehabilitation counseling profession. To help rehabilitation counseling professionals better understand the importance of forgiveness as it relates to disability, this article explains the meaning of forgiveness and self-forgiveness, barriers that inhibit the development of forgiveness, models of forgiveness, and empirical research …

Balancing Self-Compassion With Self-Advocacy: A New Approach For Persons With Disabilities Learning To Self-Advocate, Susan Stuntzner, Michael Hartley

Counseling Faculty Publications

Self-advocacy and self-compassion are concepts typically not perceived as related or as skills which hold great value when infused. Learning to self-advocate can be a challenging task for many persons with disabilities. Oftentimes people are not afforded access to information on how to self-advocate. As a result, many people must struggle to figure out if, when, and how to self-advocate. In an effort to change this trend, the present article argues that self-compassion connects self-advocacy and empowerment while also reinforcing an underlying message that individuals do not need to be rescued and are not victims of their environments. Self-advocacy is …

Comparison Of Two Online Interventions To Cope With Spinal Cord Injury: A Pilot Study, Susan Stuntzner, Michael Hartley, Ruth Lynch, Robert Enright

Counseling Faculty Publications

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a disability and life experience that may suddenly, drastically, and forever change a person’s life. While psychosocial interventions and support services are typically integrated within the acute rehabilitation process, there is limited research on psychosocial interventions and support services after individuals have been discharged from the hospital and are living in their communities again. To address this void and important need, two interventions were administrated through an online website to people who had lived with a spinal cord injury (SCI) for at least one year. Results found that both Enright’s (2001) forgiveness intervention and Kennedy …

The Mindful Path To Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself From Destructive Thoughts And Emotions By Christopher Germer (Review), Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

The books begins by explaining peoples’ tendency to resist, suppress, or escape their emotional and mental pain. The author, Dr. Christopher Germer, helps the reader understand that by doing so, people actually create more personal, mental, and emotional pain for themselves. More specifically, he lays out in an easy-to-understand equation that pain compounded by resistance equates to more suffering (p. 15). While experiencing pain is a part of the human experience, Germer (2009) explains that “suffering is optional” (p. 16), meaning that people do not need to compound their experiences and make them worse. Rather than resist our pain, the …

Comparing Outcomes From An Online Substance Abuse Treatment Program And Residential Treatment Programs For Consumers Who Are Deaf: A Pilot Study, Josphine Wilson Ph.D., Deb Guthmann Ed.D., Jared Embree, Susan Fraker

JADARA

Numerous barriers exist when attempting to provide culturally appropriate substance use disorder (SUD) treatment to persons who are Deaf, including a lack of accessible community-based treatment providers. To address these barriers, the Deaf Off Drugs and Alcohol (DODA) Program has provided culturally and linguistically appropriate cessation and recovery support services via a telemedicine program to Deaf individuals who are clinically diagnosed with a SUD. This study was conducted to assess whether an online SUD treatment program, such as DODA, is an effective way to serve the Deaf population, which is underserved due to communication and other cultural barriers. DODA’s effectiveness …

Academic Advising: Helping Promote The Success Of College Students With College Students With Psychiatric Disabilities, Jamie P. Claytor

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Academic advisors in higher education include professional full-time staff advisors, faculty advisors, graduate assistants, interns, and staff who serve dual roles as academic advisors and career advisors. Who among these many groups does the advising can have an impact on how advising is delivered and of what the advising process consists. For those students dealing with psychiatric disabilities, they may find themselves suffering academically and afraid to ask for help. It is essential to have an academic advisor who can recognize students in distress, guidelines regarding how to deal with these students, and steps to take when referral to a …

Women With Disabilities In The Workplace: A Need For Advancement Opportunities, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Women in the workplace is not a new concept, particularly given the fact they constitute about half of the workforce in many countries. Despite their increased presence, women continue to be challenged in their ability to advance within the workplace or, in some instances, acquire solid, well-paying, meaningful positions. Reasons for this are varied. Women continue to find themselves charged with the responsibility of maintaining their home and raising their children while also being a part of the workforce; thus, causing them to consider a non-linear career or employment path. Others may not have been raised or encouraged from a …

Forgiveness: A Vital Skill To Cope With Employment Issues, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Forgiveness is a topic most people probably associate with personal values, spirituality, or religiosity. It may even be considered in relation to living a healthier lifestyle but not in relation to employment concerns or injustices. Despite, its traditional associations and the perspectives most commonly held, forgiveness is a value, a practice, and a way of life that benefits to person who practices it more than the person who committed the offense, hurt, or perceived wrongdoing. Forgiveness is also a skill and a process which can be learned or taught and has value in regards to employment issues and concerns.

Narratives Of Illness, Difference, And Personhood, John P. Mctighe

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

Using narrative theory, the chapter examines how ideas and attitudes about mental disorder are shaped by cultural values and stereotypes, and how the experience of trauma can shatter the narrative of self and world. Placing the question of illness, differentness, and personhood within a social justice perspective, it challenges clinicians to consider how the vocabulary of illness is used to frame experience and, in many cases, to minimize, marginalize, or discount the individual's own lived experience.

Resiliency And Coping With Disability: The Family After, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

The content of this book was also intended to be used as a starting place for families to sort out and make sense of their experiences with self, life, other people, and society following disability. I believe this to be very important because the process of figuring out what to do following disability is often murky and extremely vague. It is my hope that readers can take the information provided and apply it to situations of childhood disability (e.g., congenital conditions), acquired disability (e.g., later onset such as TBI, SCI), or age-related disability (e.g., dementia, Alzheimer’s disease), although the specific …

Implementing A Holistic Approach To Enhance Career Opportunities For Transition Students With Disabilities, Susan Stuntzner, Bryan Austin

Counseling Faculty Publications

Transition services are vitally important and an essential component of successful employment, career planning, self-determination, and independent living for students with disabilities. Public schools strive to meet the federal mandates placed upon them to help this group of students reach graduation and beyond. However, students with disabilities oftentimes fall short and do not succeed following high school. In an effort to change this trend, information pertaining to transition services and ways it can be enhanced are provided. This chapter addresses: the necessity of transition services and its relationship to federal legislation, barriers that inhibit students’ successful transition to adult life, …

Family Resilience Following Disability: Enhancing Counselors’ Skills, Susan Stuntzner, Michael Hartley

Counseling Faculty Publications

Resilience is a relatively new research concept that has yet to receive the attention it needs to be adequately applied to individuals with disabilities and their families. Resilience as an approach, solution, or set of skills has scantly been applied to families dealing with the advent of disability. The information provided is intended to change this trend. Counselors can enhance their work with families living with a disability by understanding ways disability may influence family functioning and how familial coping impacts personal coping and adaptation to disability, as well as utilizing strategies to help families become more resilient following disability.

Resilience: A Pathway To Healthier And Happier Living, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Resilience….What does it mean? How does a person acquire it? What is its relationship to disability, employment, and quality of life? These are some questions people may ponder when they hear it used in conjunction with disability, employment, and healthier living.

While the expectation of being resilient following a traumatic or life changing event is an embedded value within our culture, resilience is not a topic often discussed or readily understood. It is either assumed it will just materialize or it is simply expected. Such beliefs are not necessarily helpful because there are times in all peoples’ lives when situations …

Stuntzner's Forgiveness Intervention: Learning To Forgive Yourself And Others, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

In an effort to help persons with disabilities learn to forgive and to achieve a more peaceful and serene way of life, a seven module forgiveness intervention has been developed. While the full intervention consists of seven modules, some professionals, depending on the person, group, or situation, may tailor the process to only six modules. This is because an additional but specific module (i.e., Module 2) was added for women with disabilities. While many of the experiences, feelings, beliefs, and personal hurts or offenses are similar regardless of gender, it was felt that an additional module be included for women …

Self-Compassion And Employment Issues Of Persons With Disabilities, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Self-compassion……..What is it? Why is it of value? How does it relate to the employment needs of persons with disabilities? These are just a few of the questions people might have when they hear the term followed by having it associated with employment and persons with disabilities. For starters, self-compassion is not a topic that has been historically discussed openly, correctly understood, or promoted. Instead, the societal message when faced with difficult life events such as disability, unemployment, and lack of resources (i.e., access, education) has been one of “just man up and deal with it.” Self-compassion offers everyone, including …

Living With A Disability: A Gateway To Practicing Forgiveness And Compassion, Susan Stuntzner, Jacquelyn Dalton

Counseling Faculty Publications

Forgiveness and compassion are two helpful approaches toward reducing the emotional, psychological, and spiritual anxiety brought about by negative and harmful experiences. Disability, forgiveness, and compassion are terms that may not be thought of in relation to one another, but here the authors introduce the idea that the experience of living with a disability can be an opportunity to practice forgiveness or compassion, whether directed toward one’s self or toward others. Forgiveness and compassion are similar yet unique practices that influence the emotional well-being. The experience of disability includes both the disabling life event (in the case of acquired disabilities) …

Compassion & Self-Compassion: Exploration Of Utility As Potential Components Of The Rehabilitation Counseling Profession, Susan Stuntzner

Counseling Faculty Publications

Compassion and self-compassion are two constructs emerging within the research as useful agents in reducing negative thoughts,feelings, and outcomes while also promoting positive ones. To date, these constructs have not been studied or applied to the rehabilitation counseling profession or the needs of individuals with disabilities. In an effort to bridge this gap and to enhance rehabilitation counseling professionals' awareness of their potential value, an in-depth review of the literature and research on these two constructs was conducted. Throughout this article, compassion and self-compassion are more clearly conceptualized and barriers which may hinder their development are discussed. A review of …