TPC Journal-V6, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor /Volume 6, Issue 4 299 problems and early intervention when possible, and (d) counselors strive to empower clients to live independently and help them avoid becoming reliant on counseling services. After consultation with my colleagues in rehabilitation counseling, I added the fourth empowerment component of my counselor identity statement. Counselors-in-training and counselors who interact with the public at large have to be able to articulate in a positive manner who counselors are and what we believe. We should never say that counseling is similar to psychology or social work, but instead should focus on statements that define our philosophy of helping others. When we fully explain our beliefs about helping, we are able to assist the members of the public to choose practitioners who are best suited to address their mental health needs. By providing counselors the four areas listed above that define our beliefs about counseling, I believe I have helped to advance the counseling profession and I am pleased I was able to publish that statement. 4. What three challenges to the counseling profession as it exists today concern you most? The American Counseling Association’s (ACA) Ineffectiveness . ACA officers and staff members are dedicated and capable professionals who are not able to be effective in advancing the counseling profession because of the flawed structure of the organization. Our national counseling professional association has an organizational structure ineffective in moving the counseling profession forward; this is arguably the most significant challenge to the profession today. The major divisions of ACA have created very successful independent specialization organizations at the expense of the success of ACA. Unfortunately, we have the impossible situation in which specialty associations are actually in control of ACA, and whose interests likely include maintaining a weak national counseling association. Currently, divisions are allowed to include members who are not members of ACA, which increases their membership at the expense of ACA membership numbers. Divisions can operate independently of ACA, holding their own revenue-generating conferences and being involved with other activities that directly compete with similar ACA revenue-generating activities. This independence of divisions allows them to reap the benefits of being under the ACA umbrella without having any responsibilities and enables them to compete directly with ACA for members and revenue. Our professional association should have the ability to stand firm on professional issues that affect the livelihood of all professional counselors and should not be limited and held back by those who appear to want ACA to be a weak organization so that specialization organizations can prosper. Unfortunately, the governing body of ACA is made up primarily of division representatives whose first allegiance is to promote their specialization organizations, not to promote the counseling profession as a whole. The unfortunate governance structure of ACA that allows divisions the power to make decisions for ACA as a whole is the result of the history of ACA, an umbrella association that was created as a federation of independent counseling associations. Although the profession of counseling has moved beyond the specialties controlling the overall counseling profession, ACA is stuck in the past with a governance structure that allows specialty divisions to make decisions for ACA. The profession of counseling currently lacks one singular, strong professional association presence. ACA should provide the united voice for all counselors and not allow special interest viewpoints to keep the profession from moving forward. We have worked hard to create the recognized and viable profession of counseling. CACREP and NBCC have done an excellent job of strengthening the counseling profession as a whole. However, the fact that the specialization divisions of ACA have separate administrators, offices, conferences and programs that compete directly with ACA threatens the future of the counseling profession. For each professional issue affecting counselors, for ACA to take a position, all specializations have to agree, which is almost