New PhD students talk a lot about their fears of doing research. Math anxiety seems to bleed its way into statistics and research methods courses. The consequence is that students develop a lot of self-defeating talk that centers around beliefs that the art of counseling does not marry well with scientific approaches to problem solving. [...]

Last week, a former client whom I hadn’t seen in over a year called me and asked for a session to debrief a depressive episode that had occurred over her Thanksgiving holiday. I was able to schedule her for the requested two-hour session, which allowed us the time and space we needed to not only [...]

Recently, when supervising students, the topic of disclosure came up. As you might expect, the group was all over the place in thoughts on the value of disclosure, as well as the ethical implications that come along with it. Although I had my own thoughts on the appropriateness of vulnerability, I wanted the students [...]

I begin this week’s blog by revealing that I survived my father’s 1994 suicide. Since that time, I’ve also lost two clients and one student to suicide. This probably sounds overwhelming for you as a reader, but I think that the most important thing I can give you is to say that my felt sense [...]

The greatest teachable moments I have as a counselor educator are those that my students and I have together. The particular moment that I’m writing about occurred last summer in a group skills development. The group was comprised of 15 students, 10 of whom were women of African-American or of mixed African-American descent. Of the [...]

Cultural competencies- how far we’ve come! There are so many real and transforming learning experiences being shared within ACA- this is a truly amazing time in our evolution as a profession. Yet, I also wonder this- at what point do we transform multicultural training so that, outside of the multicultural counseling class that is standard [...]