TPC Journal V7, Issue 4 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 4 379 and other professionals exists because there is a lack of significant knowledge of sport and mental health, which may be the result of a lack of a clear model within the mental health professions about what sport counseling should look like and the distinctive role sports counselors can have when working with athletes. We believe that a commitment to establishing a clearer sport counseling identity would distinguish sport counseling programs like those at Springfield College, California University of Pennsylvania, and Adler University from other programs and would provide enhanced opportunities for graduates wanting to work in athletics. Implications and Future Directions for Sport Counseling Researchers and Practitioners Counselors must consider the question: “If the need for sport counselors exists, why haven’t they proliferated among sport organizations?” This question is not easily answered without significant inquiry; still, there is evidence that begins to tell the story. Certainly, the ubiquity of a stigma against mental health in athletics has historically inspired hesitation to seek help (Brewer, Van Raalte, Petitpas, Bachman, & Weinhold, 1998). In fact, counselors are no strangers to this stigma. Historically, individuals have hesitated to seek assistance for mental health concerns due to the societal stigma mental health carries. Over the years, education and awareness efforts have decreased mental health stigma; however, the profession of counseling has continued to struggle with identifying itself as a profession distinct from other mental health professions (Remley & Herlihy, 2016). To mitigate this struggle, counselors have worked tirelessly to educate and advocate for the professional identity of counselors. In doing so, counselors have utilized Nugent’s (1980) guidelines for identifying a mature profession to gain professional distinction (Remley & Herlihy, 2016). These guidelines include having a clearly defined role and scope of practice, offering unique services, having specialized knowledge and skills, having a code of ethics, obtaining legal rights to offer services through licensure and certification, and having an ability to monitor professional practice (Nugent, 1980). In order to achieve these criteria, some members of the profession promote viewing counseling as the predominant profession with specialty areas that continue to support the primary profession (Remley & Herlihy, 2016). As one of the potential specialties, the area of sport counseling can learn from the progress the primary profession of counseling has accomplished. Utilizing the parallels present in the journey of the counseling profession as an example, sport counseling also can develop a mature identity within the counseling profession. Despite this area’s history and obstacles to proliferation, there are many ways that counselors can play an active role in building the sport counseling specialty. Counselors interested in working with athletes must focus on the development of a comprehensively developed identity. Sport counseling lacks dedicated documentation of the behaviors that practitioners perform. The values and beliefs that distinguish sport counseling from related professions need to be identified. At minimum, the development of competencies, teaching and practice guidelines, and ethical codes are necessary to establish an identity that is separate but compatible with existing services for athletes, while still remaining true to the overall counseling profession. As advocates of a sport counseling specialization begin to take concrete steps toward promoting professional identity, practitioners may be better able to market themselves to stakeholders and find opportunities to begin meeting the mental health needs of athletes. The 20/20 Vision for the Future of Counseling ( 20/20 ; Kaplan & Gladding, 2011) marks an important step in the establishment of a clear and succinct philosophy representative of all counselors. The 20/20 research team used Delphi methodology, an approach to structuring and organizing experts to come to consensus on an area of incomplete knowledge (Powell, 2003), to invite leaders in counseling to determine an updated, more appropriate definition to clarify the profession’s identity (Kaplan & Gladding, 2011). In an effort to unify as one counseling profession, counselors advocating for a