TPC Journal V7, Issue 2 - FULL ISSUE

202 The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 2 typical types of clients they see or their expertise in working with specific counseling techniques. The inability to articulate their expertise negatively impacts their occupational role. Namely, the progression moved from (a) a weak or nonexistent title with an ambiguous discussion of clients and techniques to (b) a weak or nonexistent title with a specific discussion of clients and techniques to (c) a stronger title with an ambiguous discussion of clients and techniques to, finally, (d) a stronger title with a specific discussion of clients and techniques. Over half (52%) of participants offered some form of a weak or nonexistent title with an ambiguous discussion of clients and techniques. One fifth of the participants communicated some form of a weak or nonexistent title with a specific discussion of clients and techniques. Around 13% of participants used a stronger title with an ambiguous discussion of clients and techniques, and 15% of participants used a stronger title with a specific discussion of clients and techniques. Implications A poor counselor professional identity in the United States has been blamed for issues with licensure portability, parity in hiring practices, marketplace recognition in U.S. society, psychologists being licensed as counselors, and third-party payments (Calley & Hawley, 2008; Myers et al., 2002; Reiner et al., 2013). A strong counselor professional identity reportedly remedies these issues and allows counselors to take full advantage of securing their ability to work with a wide range of client populations, receive third-party reimbursement, offer all of the services afforded in their scope of practice and make a greater impact when advocating for clients (Calley & Hawley, 2008; Myers et al., 2002; Reiner et al., 2013). There is clearly much room for improvement in counselor professional identity when independently licensed counselors discuss their occupational role with others. ACA, AASCB, CACREP, CSI and NBCC have all taken steps to attempt to secure a stronger counselor professional identity. With only 11% of participants mentioning even one of the hallmarks of the profession of counseling, it is imperative that counselors learn one unified message about the hallmarks of the profession of counseling. Healey and Hays (2012) have identified these hallmarks as normal development, prevention, wellness, advocacy and empowerment. These hallmarks are commonly found in the ACA Code of Ethics, CACREP Standards, the NCE, counselor professional identity research, and counselor professional issues and ethics textbooks. The question arises whether counselor educators are teaching counselor professional identity in ways that impact how counselors articulate their occupational role with others. Although the CACREP Standards require documentation that counselor professional identity is taught to students as well as requiring that those same standards be measured, the quality of the measurement of those standards is not under CACREP’s purview. The results of this study suggest that all of the counselor professional identity efforts of ACA, CACREP, NBCC and counselor educators have made little impact on independently licensed counselors when 54% of them do not use the generic terms counselor or counseling and only 29% assign themselves the title professional counselor . There has been much talk about counselor professional identity, but the outcomes suggest that most independently licensed counselors have no connection to counselor professional identity. A systemic problem exists in the counseling profession’s training of counselors to adopt and articulate a counselor professional identity. It seems as if the organizations of the profession of counseling (ACA, CACREP, NBCC and CSI) know counselor professional identity is the foundation of the profession and have integrated these concepts into the ACA Code of Ethics, 2016 CACREP Standards, the NCE, and CSI’s Six Advocacy Themes. What is not known is what they mean when counselor educators state that they adopt a counselor professional identity. Do counselor educators who say they adopt a counselor professional identity actually understand how the five hallmarks of