TPC-Journal-V1-Issue3

194 The Professional Counselor \ Volume 1, Issue 1 divisional affiliates. Since ACPA’s disaffiliation, ACA membership has plunged from a high near 60,000 to the current number of just over 45,000 (D. Kaplan, personal communication, April 8, 2011). It’s also likely that most of the members who left ACA retained their membership in a divisional affiliate. Splintering may partly explain why such a small percentage of the 655,000 U.S. counselors (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010–2011) join neither ACA nor their respective divisional affiliate. The high degree of counselor non-affiliation with the profession’s established organizations is alarming and illustrates a disconnect between counseling professionals and the organizations that ostensibly represent them. Fortunately, there has been recent good news regarding ACA’s membership, which has grown 8% over the past 18 months (D. Kaplan, personal communication, April 8, 2011). Most of this growth in membership has been graduate student members who now receive liability insurance as student members. While any growth in membership is a positive sign, whether graduate students will continue their membership in ACA after graduation is uncertain. The fact also remains that ACA’s membership is composed of a small percentage of counseling professionals cited by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010–2011). A more robust sign of growth would be an increase in the numbers of professional counselors currently unaffiliated with ACA. ACA’s composition has been compared to a “ball of multi-colored yarn with an emphasis on the specialties of counseling as opposed to the overall profession” (Bradley & Cox, 2001, p. 39). This phenomenon of separatism seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. For example, I regularly receive mailings from national, regional, state, and local counseling organizations, all of whom actively and separately solicit membership. Which of these various organizations to join can be confusing and expensive, and further illuminates the question of where professional loyalty should lie: with the national organization, specialty division, state affiliate, state specialty affiliate or local organization. In many states, separate organizations representing school counselors, mental health counselors, rehabilitation counselors and the state affiliates of ACA compete for membership, hold separate conventions, publish separate state journals and engage in separate lobbying efforts. Such duplication and splintering cannot be healthy for the profession. Duplication concerns are not confined to the U.S. In Australia, where this author taught in a counseling program, three different organizations claimed to represent the counseling profession. It is likely such scenarios are common worldwide. While there is no easy resolution to this complex identity dilemma, it would seem prudent for leaders of all counseling organizations to recognize antagonism, division and duplication of resources that are working against the overall goal of establishing counseling as a strong, unified, and influential profession. Ironically, counseling’s most insidious adversary may not be psychiatrists, psychologists, or social workers, but the counseling profession itself. Unification is arguably the counseling profession’s most pressing challenge and if left unresolved, potentially leads to the counseling profession’s own “Tower of Babel” with confusion over what’s being said, who’s speaking, and which organization actually represents the profession. Perhaps former ACA president Samuel Gladding (2009) said it best: “Since 1952 most counselors in the United States and a number of other countries have held membership in ACA…with an emphasis on the specialties of counseling as opposed to the overall profession…other professions, such as medicine, have overcome the divisiveness that comes within a profession where there is more than one professional track practitioners can follow. ACA has not been as fortunate (pp. 26–27).” The motto “e pluribus unum” (one out of many) has much relevance for the counseling profession as a large, vibrant flagship likely is in a stronger advocacy position than numerous smaller ones. The American Psychological Association (APA) is one professional model to emulate as APA, despite representing scores of branches, remains a vibrant flagship organization. For any hope of achieving parity with its mental health colleagues, the various counseling “professions” must set aside differences and unite around core national organizations. Fortunately, there has been recent movement in this direction. The 20/20 counseling initiative, composed of 29 different counseling-related organizations, has recently reached consensus on how counseling is defined and ACA as the flagship organization (Cashwell, 2010). Unfortunately, ASCA, the largest divisional affiliate, has yet to sign onto the 20/20 initiative. The 20/20 initiative likely represents the counseling profession’s best chance at unity. One can only hope the initiative will be an opportunity seized and not one missed. Besides splintering, the profession faces additional “in-house” challenges. During the 1960s and 1970s a significant debate involved humanistic versus behavioral approaches. Different views of mental health counseling have evolved, including those that are developmental (Ivey, 1989); relationship focused (Ginter, 1989); and slanted towards treatment,