Values

Should Counselor Education Be Measuring What Students Believe?

Leave a Comment / CACREP, Counseling, Cultural Competence, culture, DEI, Politics, Social Justice, Values /

There are some words in our CACREP professional standards that deserve much more attention than they receive. Here are five: Those words appear in CACREP’s 2024 definition of professional dispositions: The commitments, characteristics, values, beliefs, and behaviors that influence the counselor’s professional growth and interactions with clients, faculty, supervisors, and peers, including working in a

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The God We Wanted: A Reflection at America’s 250th

Leave a Comment / Character, Christianity, Current Events, Faith, Politics, Values /

I was almost thirteen years old in the summer of 1976 when my father took me to a large religious rally in Phoenix, Arizona. It was America’s Bicentennial, and everything seemed wrapped in red, white, and blue. Patriotism and faith were woven together so tightly in those days that it was hard to tell where

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The Making of a Counselor

Leave a Comment / Character, Counseling, Storytelling, Values, wisdom /

Today, counseling is often marketed as though almost anyone can become an effective therapist with enough coursework, enough supervision hours, and enough credentials behind their name. Training matters, of course. Ethics and skills matter. But I am not convinced that training alone creates the kind of counselor people seek when their lives are falling apart.

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When Equality Became Equity (The Same Pants, Part 2)

1 Comment / Addiction, Character, Connection, Counseling, Cultural Competence, culture, DEI, Labels, Multicultural, Social Justice, Storytelling, Values /

One of my first introductions to what would later become modern social justice training happened years ago while I was working as a Child Protective Services investigator in Arizona. At the time, I was also working toward becoming a therapist, and I believed strongly in treating people equally. I believed investigations should rise or fall

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