TPC Journal-Vol 11-Issue-1

102 The Professional Counselor™ Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages 102–121 http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org © 2021 NBCC, Inc. and Affiliates doi: 10.15241/dej.11.1.102 David E. Jones, EdD, NCC, LPC, is an assistant professor at Liberty University. Jennifer S. Park, PhD, NCC, ACS, LPC, is an assistant professor at Colorado Christian University. Katie Gamby, PhD, LPC, CWC, is an assistant professor at Malone University. Taylor M. Bigelow, PhD, is an assistant professor at the University of New Haven. Tesfaye B. Mersha, PhD, is an associate professor at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCMHC), University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Alonzo T. Folger, PhD, MS, is an assistant professor at the CCMHC, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Correspondence may be addressed to David E. Jones, 1971 University Blvd., Lynchburg, VA 24515, dejones14@liberty.edu. David E. Jones, Jennifer S. Park, Katie Gamby, Taylor M. Bigelow, Tesfaye B. Mersha, Alonzo T. Folger Mental Health Epigenetics: A Primer With Implications for Counselors Epigenetics is the study of modifications to gene expression without an alteration to the DNA sequence. Currently there is limited translation of epigenetics to the counseling profession. The purpose of this article is to inform counseling practitioners and counselor educators about the potential role epigenetics plays in mental health. Current mental health epigenetic research supports that adverse psychosocial experiences are associated with mental health disorders such as schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, and addiction. There are also positive epigenetic associations with counseling interventions, including cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, diet, and exercise. These mental health epigenetic findings have implications for the counseling profession such as engaging in early life span health prevention and wellness, attending to micro and macro environmental influences during assessment and treatment, collaborating with other health professionals in epigenetic research, and incorporating epigenetic findings into counselor education curricula that meet the standards of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). Keywords: epigenetics, mental health, counseling, prevention and wellness, counselor education Epigenetics , defined as the study of chemical changes at the cellular level that alter gene expression but do not alter the genetic code (T.-Y. Zhang & Meaney, 2010), has emerging significance for the profession of counseling. Historically, people who studied abnormal behavior focused on determining whether the cause of poor mental health outcomes was either “nature or nurture” (i.e., either genetics or environmental factors). What we now understand is that both nature and nurture, or the interaction between the individual and their environment (e.g., neglect, trauma, substance abuse, diet, social support, exercise), can modify gene expression positively or negatively (Cohen et al., 2017; Suderman et al., 2014). In the concept of nature and nurture, there is evidence that psychosocial experiences can change the landscape of epigenetic chemical tags across the genome. This change in landscape influences mental health concerns, such as addiction, anxiety, and depression, that are addressed by counseling practitioners (Lester et al., 2016; Provençal & Binder, 2015; Szyf et al., 2016). Because the field of epigenetics is evolving and there is limited attention to epigenetics in the counseling profession, our purpose is to inform counseling practitioners and educators about the role epigenetics may play in clinical mental health counseling. Though many counselors and counselor educators may have taken a biology class that covered genetics sometime during their professional education, we provide pedagogical scaffolding from genetics to epigenetics. Care was taken to ensure accessibility of information for readers across this continuum of genetics knowledge. Much of what we offer below on genetics is putative knowledge, as we desire to establish a foundation for the reader in genetics so they may be able to have a greater