TPC Journal V8, Issue 1 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 1 33 understand how to correct other mental health professionals holding inaccurate visions of the scope of practice of counselors to address role ambiguity, power and status conflicts, and stereotypes. 2.1 Professional Counselor Identity Training Counselor professional identity rests upon specifically imparting the values, attitudes, and behaviors of the counseling profession to master’s and doctoral students (Choate, Smith, & Spruill, 2005). A strong professional counselor identity requires pride in the profession of counseling and learning from faculty with a solid professional counselor identity (Woo, 2013). Several counseling professional organizations have established the foundation of counselor professional identity. The Chi Sigma Iota (CSI) Counselor Advocacy Leadership Conferences in 1998 stressed that counselor education students should graduate with a clear counselor professional identity and pride in the profession of counseling (Chi Sigma Iota, 1998). Sweeney (2001) stated that the counseling profession’s values and how those values guide professional behaviors determine counselor professional identity as opposed to specific techniques, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, used in a counseling session. More specifically, Burns and Cruikshanks (2017) discussed at length how the five hallmarks of the counseling profession (normal development, prevention, wellness, advocacy, and empowerment) are not exclusively valued by counselors but differ in focus from other mental health professions. For example, in the profession of counseling, counselors use empowerment by encouraging client autonomy, self-advocacy, self- validation, and self-determination. In comparison, social workers encourage clients’ socially responsible self-determination to balance the needs of clients and society. In psychology, empowerment occurs when the psychologist respects cultural differences, safeguards client welfare, and allows the client to make their own decisions. Several professional counseling organizations work to impart the values of the profession of counseling. The ACA Code of Ethics (2014), Section C, states that counselors should join counseling organizations at local, state, and national levels and properly articulate their roles and scope of practice to others. Additionally, ACA endorses the principles of counselor professional identity generated by the 20/20 workgroup (Kaplan & Gladding, 2011). Two of those principles state that “sharing a common professional identity is critical for counselors” and “presenting ourselves as a unified profession has multiple benefits” (Kaplan & Gladding, 2011, p. 372). These two principles validate that a consistent and clear professional counselor identity could potentially help counselors become licensed in another state, have an equal chance at being hired as the other mental health professions, improve recognition of the counseling profession as distinct from other professions, and obtain reimbursement for services by all private and government health insurance providers (Calley & Hawley, 2008; Myers et al., 2002; Reiner et al., 2013). The CACREP 2016 Standards (2015) require a professional orientation course that covers the history, ethical standards, professional roles and responsibilities, professional associations, credentialing and licensure processes, professional advocacy, wellness, and public policy issues relevant to the counseling profession. Additionally, the National Counselor Examination (NCE; NBCC, 2012), used in most states as the examination to obtain a counseling license, tests counselors on eight CACREP domains: human growth and development, social and cultural diversity, counseling and helping relationships, group counseling and group work, career counseling, assessment and testing, research and program evaluation, and professional counseling orientation and ethical practice. Therefore, to obtain a counseling license, most counselors will be tested on the history and values of the profession of counseling (Emerson, 2010). Unfortunately, before 2017, no research measured the communications of independently licensed counselors for professional identity. Therefore, no rubric existed to determine if independently licensed counselors expressed to others a clear counselor professional identity, and if not, how