Counseling Commons^™

“Thrown In Cold Turkey”: Perceived Preparedness And Self-Efficacy In Counseling Trainees Transitioning To The Application Of Theory In A Practicum Or Internship, Monique Alicia Starling

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental, phenomenological study was to describe master’s-level counseling trainees’ (MLCTs) perceived preparedness to treat real clients before transitioning to their practicum or internship experience. Adult learning theory and self-efficacy development theory guided this study. The research questions were (a) How do master-level counseling trainees describe their experience of perceived preparedness to real clients before transitioning to their practicum or internship experience? (b) How do study participants describe the influence that the counseling program curriculum, including structure and practicum timing, had on their readiness to transition to practicum or internship? (c) How do study participants describe the …

Moderated Mediated Model Of Religiosity, God Image, And Self Compassion, Amanda Strivings

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Religious engagement can be a protective factor as well as contribute to negative mental health outcomes in religious populations. Early experiences in the parent-child relationship influence how individuals view God, which influences how they emotionally experience and engage with religion. Previous research has explored the relationships between religiosity, view of God, and self-compassion. This study explored the influence of three separate views of God on the cross-generational maintenance of religiosity and as sociocultural factors that influence self-compassion within the context of religiosity. Results supported several direct and indirect relationships. The analysis included one simple mediation model to explore the mediating …

Abusive Management And Workplace Trauma In The Mental Health Field: A Phenomenological Study, Amanda White

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Workplace trauma can take place in various forms including abusive supervision or management, workplace bullying, vicarious traumatization, violence, compassion burnout, and workplace stress. For the most part, the perpetrators of these incidents can either be strangers, peers, or management within the organization. The aftermath of workplace trauma can be detrimental to a person’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and cause work-related issues. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the personal experiences of those in the mental health field who have been traumatized in the workplace specifically by the management within the organization. This study was directed …

Counselors Perception Of Life Experiences Affecting Their Longevity In Counseling, Melissa S. Kennedy

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to examine counselor perceptions of life experiences on clinicians remaining in the counseling field. The theory guiding this study is self-efficacy as it relates to clinicians’ positive experiences that supported them in counseling over time. In total, 10 state-licensed mental health counselors participated in semi-structured interviews with the researcher. The data collected was analyzed for common themes from all interviews. The common themes included the following: personal trauma, intrinsic motivation, faith, community building, theoretical application, and enjoyable activities. Counselors should engage in more positive activities to increase longevity in counseling.

Phenomenological Study Of Resiliency Among Native Americans, Mary K. Laungayan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to understand what resilience factors, if any, contribute to the reversal of adverse reactions to intergenerational trauma, in Native Americans. The study will attempt to use the data collected to determine an implementation of support that will build a scaffolding of resilience that can benefit Native American Children. The theory guiding this study is the resiliency theory, which conceptualizes positive variables that guide behaviors in individuals who have been exposed to historical trauma and experienced, Adverse Childhood Effects (ACEs) (Zimmerman, 2013). Using an exploratory qualitative design, this study worked to gather data from …

Unlocking Hope: Exploring Suicide Protective Factors Through The Georgia Student Health Survey, Megan Kinsey Thrasher

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to determine the relationship between teenage suicide of Georgia public high school students as it relates to school connectedness, peer support, and adult support as determined by the Georgia Student Health Survey (GSHS). The GSHS is an anonymous statewide survey instrument given to secondary Georgia public school students. Archival data from completed GSHS results were used in this analysis. The significance of the research study is to determine if the survey provides reliable information to the Georgia Department of Education and local educational agencies as a useful tool and indicator of potential …

Addressing Weight In Primary Care: Perspectives Of African American Young Adults With Serious Mental Illness, Sang Qin, Lindsay Sheehan, Janis Sayer, Kristin S. Williams, Julius Mercer, Ashley Scott, Tevin Anderson

Journal of Human Services Scholarship and Interprofessional Collaboration

Young adults with serious mental illness (SMI) experience disproportionate rates of physical illness. Morbidity and mortality are even worse for young African Americans with SMI, especially those who are overweight. Primary care physicians (PCPs) have an important role in addressing weight management. Current research explored these young patient’s perceptions of weight management and how PCPs can best address their weight concerns. Using community-based participatory research, we interviewed 25 African American aged 18-30 who were overweight and had a SMI. Results revealed 1) patient perceptions around weight and 2) patient preferences. Participants identified both positive and negative aspects of being overweight, …

Understanding Unique Employability Skill Sets Of Autistic Individuals: A Systematic Review, Amy Jane Griffiths, Rachel Torres, Raquel Delgado, Amy E. Hurley-Hanson, Cristina M. Giannantonio, Wallace Walrod, Zachary Maupin, John Brady

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In recent years, several publications and media outlets have highlighted how the skills and interests of autistic individuals may benefit organizations. However, there is scant empirical research on the topic. The present study's authors conducted a systematic review to find which potential employability skills, strengths, and interests of autistic individuals available research has highlighted. Data extraction methods identified 51 papers related to skills in this population. The skill sets autistic individuals may possess and the research behind these findings were organized, evaluated, and summarized. Based on these findings, investigators discuss implications for employment counseling and future research.

Using Novelty Methods To Teach Counseling Students Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Multiculturalism, Keesha M. Kerns, David J. Ford Jr, Jill Ardely

National Cross-Cultural Counseling & Education Conference for Research, Action & Change (2016-2024)

The presentation will utilize knowledge of novelty methods to educate counseling students on how to cultivate a brave space and sense of belonging while allowing cultural exploration in counseling and education on a post secondary grant. Presenters will facilitate an understanding of participants' own cultural beliefs as related to diversity, multiculturalism, tolerance, and acceptance in counseling and education to promote professional growth as a counseling and education student.

Continuing The Legacy: Navigating Grief And Loss While Pursuing A Degree, Sharon Lewis, Hope Charles, Nivischi Edwards

National Cross-Cultural Counseling & Education Conference for Research, Action & Change (2016-2024)

A 2013 study found 74.8% of Black girls graduated high school, while only 37.6% of the Black females in early adulthood were enrolled in college (Kalu, 2022). The added pressure of navigating grief while also endeavoring higher education only exacerbates that statistic. Learning to process grief healthfully is a useful lesson to ensure one’s ability to thrive during their grief.

Hurting The Helpers: Mental Health And The United States’ Education System, Simone Fh Banks

National Cross-Cultural Counseling & Education Conference for Research, Action & Change (2016-2024)

Teachers in US public schools are in the midst of a workforce crisis. Mounting responsibilities, struggling to make a liveable wage, and the impact teaching has on a person’s mental health are reasons why teachesr are leaving the profession in huge numbers. This presentation will highlight the impact the current system has on teachers’ mental health.

Responsibilities Of Arab Think Tanks And Strategic Studies Centers In Supporting Administrative Leaders Against Contemporary Challenges And Transformations, خليل الخطيب, معين النصراوين

Jerash for Research and Studies Journal مجلة جرش للبحوث والدراسات

The study aimed at identifying the responsibilities and urgent roles of Arab think tanks and strategic studies centers in supporting administrative leaders against contemporary challenges and transformations. The study followed the descriptive survey approach (content analysis) for all the available literature, i.e. (37) elements, which entirely constituted the research community and its sample. After analyzing the data, the study reached a number of results, the most important of which are: The first global think tank was established in America in 1957, and in the Arab world, Egypt was the nucleus of these tanks. The Institute for Arab Research and Studies …

A Revolution In School Counselor-Administration Collaboration, Kimberly Farley-Smith, Jill Minor, Neil E. Duchac

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Forging sustainable school counseling programs is the essential foundation for school counselors leadership in creating equitable programming. Transformative school leadership and transformational school counselors' leadership is crucial in creating sustainable programming, increasing positive school culture, and propelling systemic change in the school. Through an ecological perspective, positive working relationships can be achieved between school leadership and school counselors.

Pornography: Social, Emotional And Mental Implications Among Adolescents, William K. Canady

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation will explain the historical development of pornography. It will highlight three segments: 1- Porn’s impact on brain development of reward pathways, ultimately increasing the appetite for more porn. 2- Porn can be a false substitute for real intimacy, resulting in decreased sexual satisfaction with a real person and increased verbal and physical aggression. 3- Porn promotes sex trafficking, promotes multiple sex partners and reduced STD prevention.

Radical Youth Work: A Community Based Approach To Working With Youth, Young Adults And Families, Weston J. Robins

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Radical Youth Work: A Community Based Approach to Working with Youth, Young Adults and Families

A focus on experiential mentoring, humanistic counseling and community engagement as a way to work with youth, young adults and families to provide true holistic therapeutic support and guidance.

Teaching Students About Trauma, Stress And Brain Regulation, Kathy J. Van Horn

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

All students are impacted by stress and can benefit by understanding their brains, their stress response, and strategies for regulation. This presentation will provide practical principles and ideas for teaching students strategies and skills for physical, emotional, and cortical regulation.

Helping All Herons - A School Based Mental Health Team Initiative, Kiersten H. Morgan, Erin Thrift, Teri Hendrix, Shannon Murray

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Our school system has experienced an increase in the number of students with significant mental health related issues. Interactions with these students were occuring on a crisis by crisis basis. Through a series of trial and error we developed Helping All Herons - A School Based Mental Health Team initiative. The team has regular contact with students, parents, outside counseling agencies and staffings to ensure that the needs of the students are being met. This team encourages a more proactive approach to student mental health compared to a reactive one.

Team Student: Putting Families And Students First, Gabrielle S. Brundidge

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

What does it take to be a true family-friendly, student-focused school? Putting families and students first means making hard choices; meeting students where they are; ensuring that all aspects of learning are relevant and engaging; helping students own their learning and control their pace; and personalizing the learning for each student-even when it's more work for the adults. In this engaging and relevant session, the team from Myers Middle School will practice what they preach. They will share processes and strategies for building relationships with students and families, communicating effectively and supporting all students through social-emotional learning and other resources. …

Defusing Escalating Situations, Louis Lamont Fletcher Phd, David Allen Watson

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

The Executive Director of Facilities and Operations and the Director of Safety and Security for a Colorado School district with 28,000 students will share tools, techniques, and experiences with conflict resolution. The presenters will outline the recognizable precursors to conflict, the importance of the individual's initial reaction, and provide tools to facilitate de-escalation. This interactive presentation provides relevant tools to de-escalate conflicts between peers, supervisors and subordinates, teachers and students, teachers and parents, school security officers and students, superintendents and board members, and school districts and community members.

Clinical Supervisors Competency And Readiness To Supervise Telehealth Practices, Myriam Buitrago

Dissertations

The growing effectiveness of telehealth as an alternative practice is gaining acceptance not only by professionals in the healthcare field but also by people who have benefited from this approach. New training and supervision practices are required to meet the new telehealth approach. Clinical supervision is a new profession identifying the competencies that define their best practices. However, telehealth is forcing us to evaluate and redefine them to meet the new telehealth requirements. This study used two assessments, the Supervisor competence self assessment and the supervisor evaluation and the Supervisor Competence Scale, to measure supervisors' self-evaluation of their performance as …

Effect Of Company-Driven Disability Diversity Initiatives: A Multi-Case Study Across Industries, Brian N. Phillips, Teresa A. Granger, Chase Ochrach, Kathryn A. Thomas, Antonio Reyes, Rachel F. Kesselmayer, Catherine A. Anderson, Katherine B. Friedman, Multiple Additional Authors

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

OBJECTIVE: In this article, we share insights emerging from case studies conducted across seven companies.We illustrate the motives, processes, and outcomes of these initiatives. METHODS: This study is built on the previously published case studies conducted across seven companies. We applied elements of consensual qualitative research (CQR) for the data collection and analyses before performing an in-depth qualitative content analysis using the data coded for each company, looking for commonalities and differences. RESULTS: Although practices differed, all companies experienced noted benefits. Committed leadership and complementary company values facilitated successful outcomes for initiatives. The strength or salience of disability-inclusive actions and …

Assessment Of Professional Counseling Dispositions: A Content Validity Analysis, Patrick R. Mullen, Jacob Joseph, Kaitlin Jones Hinchey, Morgan Walker, Jennifer Niles

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

Counselor educators evaluate the professional counseling dispositions of trainees throughout their development within training programs. There have been few consistent articulations of professional dispositions as many programs and measures define them differently. In our study, we developed the Assessment of Professional Counseling Dispositions (APCD) and performed a content validity study of the measure. Our findings provide evidence for the content validity of the APCD. We discuss these findings, their implications, and future research using the measure.

The Class Of 2019: Academic Employment Prospects For Counselor Education Doctoral Graduates, Christopher Lawrence, Gregory Hatchett

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

The purpose of this investigation was to estimate the percentage of counselor education doctoral (CED) program graduates who attained faculty positions within two years of graduation and to compare the number of these graduates to the number of advertised faculty positions during this same timeframe. To do so, we used archival, publicly available data for graduates of CACREP-accredited CED programs during the 2018-2019 academic cycle (N = 314). Approximately two-fifths of these graduates had faculty positions. Graduation from a public university increased the odds of having any faculty post, whereas graduation from a public university and the Carnegie Classification of …

A Model Of Retention And Remediation For Online Counselor Education, Colleen M. Grunhaus, Matthew Lyons

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

Online counseling programs experience unique retention and gatekeeping challenges. Increased isolation and personal adversities are common factors associated with attrition for online students; and broad-access admission policies of online counseling programs often lead to increased gatekeeping concerns postadmission. Counseling programs develop policies and procedures related to retention, remediation, and dismissal, but extant models of remediation do not also address student retention or the unique challenges of online counselor education. We present a model, The Retention and Remediation Model for Online Counselor Education, that demonstrates a comprehensive policy for retention, remediation, and dismissal in online counseling programs through a three-prong approach …

Professional Identity Development Of Black Doctoral Students In Counselor Education: A Reflexive Model, Olivia T. Ngadjui Phd, Elizabeth A. Doughty Horn

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

This grounded theory study comprised the perspectives of how past and current Black doctoral students formalized their professional identity in counselor education. Findings included reflexivity as a central theme within the internal process of Black doctoral students navigating counselor education programs and a model of professional identity development.

Relationships Of Empathy And Color-Blind Attitudes On Counseling Students’ Critical Consciousness, Bagmi Das, Maggie M. Parker, Sarah Litt

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

A critical piece of counselor education is enhancing counselors’ in training (CITs) multicultural competence. Concepts included in CIT cultural development include both developing empathy (Constantine, 2001) and dismantling color-blind racial attitudes` (Neville et al., 2013). Thus, this study presents multiple regression to explore the relationships between color blindness, empathy development, and critical consciousness of 166 counseling students. Results indicate that that empathy and color-blind attitudes have associations with some aspects of critical consciousness, but not sociopolitical participation. Implications for counselor education and directions for future research are discussed.

Social Justice Identity And Program Evaluation: A Pilot Study Of Cmhc Students, Heidi L. Henry

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

Program development and evaluation can be used to address historical inequities in mental health, but they are scarcely studied in counselor education. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine how taking one social-justice focused CMHC management course impacted 66 counseling students’ social justice identity and program evaluation understanding. Participating students completed a group program proposal focused on social justice and program evaluation. To assess change in their social justice attitudes, behaviors, and program evaluation understanding, they completed a demographic questionnaire, pre-test, and post-test. The results, derived from t-tests and Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests, indicated a significant improvement from pre- …

The Lived Experiences Of Premarital Counseling And Its Influence On Martial Satisfaction, Donna M. Saulter-Carney

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of married couples from various demographic backgrounds who have engaged in premarital counseling in Maryland. How do couples experience premarital counseling is the study’s central research question. The theory guiding this study is Gottman’s (1993) cascade model of marital dissolution. This model offers a theoretical framework for understanding how minor issues in marriage can exacerbate and foster the entire marital experience. The study is quantitative research using an interpretive phenomenological design to recruit the participants for the study. The study conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews with couples to …

The Effect Of Music On Spiritual Well Being Among Hospice Patients, Mathai Abraham

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The life expectancy of a hospice patient is approximately six months or less. Hospice care is not for the cure of the disease. It is the care provided to the patients for the symptom management of the disease. Hospice care, known as end-of-life care, is very important for a comfortable and peaceful passage. Holistic care for the hospice patient is the goal of the hospice care plan. A hospice patient’s spiritual well-being can be maintained by spiritual support through a spiritual presence and spiritual conversation; all hospice care institutions' disciplines can provide adequate spiritual aid through their interaction with patients, …

A Correlational Study Of The Resilience Factors That Promote Mental Health In First Responders, Tamara Rae Grayson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Too often, the title first responder (FR) has been correlated with mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, substance use, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There was a need to address the mental health of this unique at-risk population prior to developing a mindset that being a FR translates into also suffering from mental illness, due to repeated exposure to traumatic situations. The purpose of this correlational study was to identify the resilience factors in FRs, what unique and untreated exposure to traumatic events looks like in FRs, what normal treatment and early interventions for mental illnesses in FRs is, the …