Counseling Commons^™

Religion's Role In Shaping Psychopathological Narratives, Andrea Gonzalez Mendoza

The Graduate Review

Understanding the interplay between religion and psychopathology is essential for clinicians navigating the complexities of mental health diagnosis and treatment. This paper explores the nuanced relationship between belief systems and diagnostic frameworks, shedding light on how religious beliefs influence the perception, assessment, and treatment of mental disorders. Drawing upon historical and current-day research, this paper examines how religious interpretations shape the presentation and understanding of psychopathological symptoms. In doing so, this paper argues that psychopathology cannot be understood without considering the influence of religion on its conceptualization. The latter is illustrated by looking at historical diagnostic patterns and how they …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

The Historical Shift On Depression: Psychoanalysis To Neuroscience, Melina Kehtar-Navaz

The Bear Counseling Collective

Depression, a condition that affects millions of people worldwide, has been an important subject for the collaboration between psychologists, medical doctors, and beyond. Over the past century, our understanding of depression has undergone a transformation from theory-driven insights of psychoanalysis to the biological and brain-based medical and cognitive models that currently dominate research in the field. In the early 20th century, psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud proposed an original definition and cause for depression, including components of unconscious conflicts. Today, with advancements in neuroscience and biological psychiatry, depression is a disorder of the brain that is affected by multiple components of …

Interview With Current Professional Counseling Student: Luke Riley, Chalan Carpenter

The Bear Counseling Collective

Obtaining a master's degree in counseling at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) is no easy feat. Like all master’s programs, it demands a great deal of time and commitment. Additionally, with the esteemed Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) accreditation, UNC's counseling program requires students to complete no less than 60 credit hours and 600 clinical internship hours beyond the practicum experience. Such a rigorous curriculum ensures that students receive extensive training, preparing them for the challenges of professional counseling. Beyond the classroom, this program requires tremendous introspection and reflection to further the professional and …

Theoretical Exploration: Feederism And Precarious Manhood, Schneebeck

The Bear Counseling Collective

The internet provides a peek into the lives of niche communities that one might not otherwise encounter in daily life. Stumbling into a unique subculture can intrigue, befuddle, or even disturb the outside viewer. The traditional physical barriers between sexual fetishes and the outside world are diminished with a few clicks of the keyboard. One sexual fetish gaining internet traction, even outside of the explicitly adult online spaces, is that of feederism. Feederism’s growing infamy comes from its odd and extreme departure from what is considered “normal” – an overt sexualization of force feeding a partner with intent of weight …

Breaking The Cycle: Addressing The Stigma Of Non-Offending Individuals To Reduce The Risk Of Child Sexual Abuse, Olinda Moro López

The Bear Counseling Collective

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is a significant public health issue worldwide. Estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that 25% of girls and 5% of boys have experienced sexual abuse (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). However, the CDC’s statistics only reflect criminal convictions of CSA cases. Notably, a 2011 meta-analysis comparing official CSA data from 217 studies with approximately 10 million self-reported samples revealed that prevalence rates could be as much as 30 times higher than official statistics suggest (Beier et al., 2024; Stoltenborgh et al., 2011). This discrepancy highlights significant under-detection and …

Theoretical Review: Finding The Light In Logotherapy, Lexi Lucas Moore

The Bear Counseling Collective

As humans, we face many forms of fire: the singe of a broken relationship, the smolder of death, and even the blaze of abuse. However, we endure the burn, and eventually, our resilience illuminates into hope. Viktor E. Frankl (1946) once said, “What is to give light must endure burning.” This tumultuous journey of rising from the ashes was familiar to Viktor, as it was a matter of his survival during his experience of the Holocaust. While imprisoned in concentration camps, Viktor developed logotherapy as a theoretical lens to promote freedom. With four universal tenants, the theory is an act …

Psychological Service Clinic: An Interview With Dr. Johnson, Leah K. Skelton

The Bear Counseling Collective

With the long wait list and high demand for mental health services, many people may have trouble finding affordable mental health services in the northern Colorado area. As director of the psychological services clinic, Dr. Johnson helped shed light on a service available in the Greeley community that many may not be aware of through the University of Northern Colorado’s Psychological Services Clinic (PSC). In an effort to help highlight this service, I sat down with Dr. Johnson to talk with him about what the PSC has to offer people in the community and the process of obtaining services.

Loneliness And The Experience Of Addiction And Recovery In Older Adults, Chalan Carpenter

The Bear Counseling Collective

Physical, emotional, and cognitive age-related changes are challenging processes for an individual to manage as they age. The aging population has higher rates of social isolation and feelings of loneliness (Haroutunian, 2016). While loneliness can be seen as an emotional experience, it also can be viewed as an age-related change. As individuals age, they will typically experience a decrease in relationships and social interaction. The experience of loneliness or isolation is a negative emotional experience which can affect a person’s ability to cope with stress and age-related changes, and to achieve developmental milestones. Through interviews with participants recovering from alcohol …

Advancing Children's Mental Health In Nevada, Kelliann Beavers, Christopher Kearney

Lincy Institute Events

Nevada ranks 51st nationally in youth mental health access and services, underscoring persistent shortages and disparities across the state. Nearly one in four youths aged 12–17 (23.5%) experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, and 73% did not receive treatment. Approximately 34,000 Nevada youths have reported suicidal thoughts—an urgent call for prevention and coordinated support.

During the 2024–2025 school year, 31.3% of Clark County School District students were chronically absent (missing 10% or more of school days), a challenge closely linked to mental health struggles and socioeconomic barriers.

This community forum provided an opportunity to generate dialogue and …

Cv: Lisa M. Brown (School Counseling/Clinical Mental Health Counseling), Lisa M. Brown

Psychology Department Faculty Curricula Vitae

No abstract provided.

The Progression Of Deinstitutionalization And Its Effects On The American South: A Judicial Analysis Of 20th-Century United States Supreme Court Decisions, Eva-Marie V. Jones

Honors College Theses

This thesis explores the effects of four landmark Supreme Court cases on the deinstitutionalization movement in the American south. Previous literature frequently discusses the legislative implications of this era; however, no law is applicable without the interpretation and application of the judiciary, which so often contextualizes the greater public perspective. Rarely has an analysis of judicial decisions involving psychiatric care merged with regional focus, and certainly not in a format accessible to the average individual.

From unmarked graves to abandoned infrastructure, the legacy of historic psychiatric care in the United States has been largely obscured – yet its consequences continue …

Three Good Things And Family Process, Julia Prouty

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

There is a need for adaptive and affordable prevention/intervention strategies to promote happiness, health, and well-being in families. Three Good Things (3GT) is a free exercise from the field of positive psychology meant to shift an individual’s focus and perceptions towards gratitude. 3GT promotes focusing on gratitude by reflecting on what an individual is grateful for from the past day/week. Persons are encouraged to write down and share their 3GT with another individual. A mindset of gratitude is closely associated with improved happiness, health, and well-being. The exercise of reflecting on 3GT is adaptive to most individuals/families. To date, most …

Development Of A Digital Career Literacy-Based Gamification Application To Improve Career Readiness Of Students With Special Needs, Agus Afriliyanto, Vesti Dwi Cahyaningrum, Ratna Wulandari, Mohamad Da'i

Buletin Konseling Inovatif

The development of digital technology has opened up new opportunities in education, including for students with special needs who often face obstacles in acquiring career skills, resulting in low career literacy and impacting their career readiness. This study aims to develop a digital career literacy-based gamification application as an innovative learning medium to improve the career readiness of students with special needs, with a scope covering design, development, and testing in accordance with their cognitive characteristics and learning needs. The study used a simplified Borg & Gall R&D model consisting of five stages, involving 30 students with special needs from …

Cognitive-Behavioral Psychoeducational Community Music Therapy For Enhancing Students’ Learning Motivation, Dominikus David Biondi Situmorang

Buletin Konseling Inovatif

Motivation is an important determinant for students’ academic achievement; however, many pupils report that their learning motivation decreases in particular prior to exams. Preventive steps, guidance and counseling teachers or school counselors reported lack of concentration, high anxiety, and low enthusiasm among high school students. This study investigated the utility of a Cognitive-Behavioral Psychoeducational Community Music Therapy Seminar/Workshop in improving students' motivation to learn before exams. A pre-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design was used with 213 senior high school students in Jakarta, Indonesia, aged between 15 to 18 years old. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was employed to assess …

Secondary Posttraumatic Stress Education Within Graudate Counseling Programs, Brandi S. Colesanti Phd

Counseling and Psychology Dissertations

Secondary posttraumatic stress is a known occupational hazard for mental health counselors. Affecting approximately 49.5% of practicing counselors, it is a normal reaction to indirectly experiencing graphic stories (Lanier & Carney, 2024). Due to underdeveloped coping skills and limited experience working with traumatized individuals, counselors in training are especially vulnerable to its impact. Extant literature contains studies exploring the effects of secondary posttraumatic stress on graduate students, made and recommendations for self-care, resilience strategies, and therapeutic interventions to be integrated into graduate counseling curriculum to mitigate symptoms. Although studies demonstrated the effectiveness of these recommendations on symptom mitigation, no formal …

Tolerating Ambiguity: Counselor Educators' Perceptions Of Gatekeeping Administration, Matthew W. Bonner, Hsin-Ya Tang, Nathaniel Brown, Keenan Eldridge

Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision

In the counseling profession, gatekeeping is a legal, ethical, and accreditation mandate. Academic and clinical standards are straightforward about the significance of gatekeeping. However, there is a lack of clarity regarding counselor dispositions, policies, procedures, and processes for gatekeeping. This study explores the dispositional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal experiences of faculty in their engagement with the phenomenon of gatekeeping through the qualitative approach of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) with 12 (N = 12) diverse counselor educators. Findings indicate counselor educators’ significant experiences with vague dispositions, relationships, engagement of counselors-in-raining (CITs), supportive feedback, and faculty anxiety.

Reverberations Of 2020: The Role Of The U.S. Racial Reckoning On Multicultural Engagement In Counseling, Dr. Donya D. Wallace, Dr. Teceta Tormala, Dr. Shreya Vaishnav, Wen Guo

Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision

The racial reckoning of 2020 and 2021 had profound effects on people. This study uses a retrospective design to examine differences in critical consciousness prior to 2020 and contemporarily among counseling students and professionals and whether critical consciousness predicts multicultural competence. Participants reported their current level of multicultural competence, and pre-2020 (retrospective) and current (contemporary) levels of critical reflection, critical motivation, critical action, and race-based critical consciousness. Participants reported higher levels on the contemporary critical consciousness measures than their retrospective assessments, suggesting that the high-impact events of 2020 raised their critical consciousness. There was no relationship between the critical consciousness …

9th Gsep Research Symposium - 2025

GSEP Research Symposium

The Ninth Annual GSEP Research Symposium, themed "Building Bridges to Elevate Humanity: Innovations and Insights in Education and Psychology", was hosted by the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) on June 19–20, 2025, at the historic Château d’Hauteville in Switzerland and virtually via Zoom.

This hybrid symposium convened a vibrant global community of students, alumni, faculty, and scholars to share research that addresses real-world challenges, advances scholarly inquiry, and builds pathways for inclusive collaboration and leadership. Spanning a wide array of topics—from artificial intelligence and mental health to trauma-informed practices, educational equity, social justice, and cross-cultural leadership—the …

Digital Learning And Healing: Impacts Of Ai In Art Therapy, Cassandra E. Buffington-Bates

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

Art therapy, a creative approach to mental and emotional healing, is evolving with digital technologies to improve accessibility and care. This paper explores how artificial intelligence (AI) enhances art therapy by fostering emotional intelligence, collaboration, and personalized interventions. It highlights AI’s potential to support therapy while addressing challenges like empathy, data privacy, and training gaps. Through a literature review, the study offers insights into integrating AI with human-centered practices, providing innovative solutions for emotional and cognitive well-being.