TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 39 the way they conduct their counseling.” Most definitely, “odd” is not a positive connotation to associate with professional counseling. In times of need, respondents likely will not seek out a source they consider to be odd. Larry offered a similar insight in his comment: “Probably that they’re just people who sit there and they try and make you talk to them even though you don’t want to and, I don’t know, probably the same thing that they would be with a psychologist.” This statement is loaded with several faulty assumptions, ubiquitous in other students’ comments. First, respondents tend to believe counselors force their clients to talk about issues when they do not wish to receive counsel, or that their sessions consist more of passive listening, where clients ramble as the counselor nods occasionally and interjects the expected empathetic reflection. Second, this respondent offhandedly equated counselors with psychologists, illuminating the lack of public awareness in deciphering services offered by counselors compared to psychologists. Students indicated that the connotations afforded by common knowledge sources of professional counselors sometimes are positive and sometimes negative, depending on the source. Molly used media news as a concrete example: “Well, usually if they hear it in the news it will be negative, if the counselor screws up, they’ll hear that, and it might give them a bad image.” She continued that one negative news report could be potent enough to prevent her or others from ever seeking a professional counselor, regardless of the intensity of the personal need. Similarly, Kim thinks that movies could “go either way” and the audience “can either think of a positive image of counselors that they really do help someone, or they can portray them as people who are out of touch with reality and don’t really help the person necessarily.” This phenomenon follows the similar vein relative to the equivocal nature of these sources. Clearly, the common knowledge phenomenon affects the realm of professional counseling by impacting not only expectations of a session on the part of the counselor or the client, but also regarding the tendency to seek professional counseling services. Discussion We believe that due deliberation of our findings are warranted on two levels: macro and micro. On the macro level, professional organizations must become more aggressive in advocating for the profession in media and other “common knowledge sources.” Specifically, we interpret our results as a clarion call to the American Counseling Association (ACA), the American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA), and the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC). In the past decade, how many times has a major motion picture made central references to a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)? A systematic assessment in answering this important question is warranted elsewhere. However, the authors of the present article are unaware of a single time when this has occurred. We do recall, of course, main characters visiting psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and even marriage & family therapists. But, it is completely unacceptable for Hollywood to ignore licensed professional counselors. Our findings suggest that movies are powerful sources by which the public come to generate their perceptions of professional counselors. When movies ignore the profession, then it follows that counselors become vulnerable to unhealthy stereotypes, negative perceptions, or simply empty perceptions. The role of professional counseling organizations is to advance the profession—and our data suggests that much more needs to be done in this domain. To be more specific, every time a major motion picture is released where main characters interact with human service professionals that are not counselors—advocacy must occur. That is, leaders of ACA, AMHCA, NBCC, state counseling organizations, and others need to issue united statements of protest. Media such as the Associated Press need to pick up on these protests, carrying complaints of professional counselors’ lack of Hollywood notice. To proactively accomplish this, the professional organizations must make permanent connections with producers, directors, writers, and other influential individuals in Hollywood as scripts are generated. Hollywood needs to be aware that if they ignore professional counselors as potential sources of human service provision, then the professional counseling organizations will become active. It should be worth their while to ensure that an apt, positive representation of counselors occurs. On the micro level, individual counselors must be more active when advertising their services to the public.