TPC Journal V8, Issue 1 - FULL ISSUE

40 The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 1 as counselors (item three); the unique philosophy of the profession of counseling taught in counselor education programs (item four); and the importance of CACREP accreditation for clinical mental health programs (item five) between Slightly Important and Moderately Important. These five results suggest that independently licensed counselors are aware that a consistent and clear professional identity could help with several concerns, such as transferring licensure to another state, being as valued as the other mental health professions in hiring practices, improving recognition of the counseling profession, and achieving equality in reimbursement for services by private and government health insurance providers (Calley & Hawley, 2008; Myers et al., 2002; Reiner et al., 2013). While there were no significant differences between the five items measuring the importance of professional identity standards, the ranking of the five items can offer some insight. Independently licensed counselors ranked counselor educators licensed and trained as counselors first, the importance of CACREP accreditation second, teaching the unique philosophy and history of the profession of counseling third, supervision in graduate school by a licensed counselor fourth, and supervision post- graduation by a licensed counselor last. They saw the most value in having students trained by counselor educators with degrees specifically from counselor education programs who also hold professional memberships, certifications, and licenses in the profession of counseling, as proposed by Bobby (2013), Emerson (2010), and Woo (2013). This result suggests participants supported clinical mental health students associating and connecting with other professional counselors (such as supervisors, colleagues, and counselor educators) with a strong counselor identity, as suggested by Gray and Remley (2003), Luke and Goodrich (2010), and Puglia (2008). Next, they acknowledged that CACREP accreditation had some value for clinical mental health programs, as recommended by ACA (2015), NBCC (2014), the AASCB Standards Commission (2010), the VA, and the Institute of Medicine for the TRICARE system of the Department of Defense (Bobby, 2013). Third, independently licensed counselors found it somewhat helpful to impart the values, attitudes, and behaviors of the counseling profession to master’s counseling students, as recommended by CSI (1998) and Choate et al. (2005). Participants ranked lowest supervision pre- and post-graduation by a licensed counselor. It appears that state requirements for licensed counselor supervision are least valued among current professional identity standards. Using inferential statistics, we first investigated the relationship between independently licensed counselors’ clarity in identifying as a counselor to others and their scores on the combined scale of the five items measuring the importance of professional identity standards. We found significance with a moderate, positive association between independently licensed counselors consistently identifying as a counselor and finding some value in CACREP and state standards for clinical mental health counseling students. This outcome suggests that developing a counselor professional identity rests upon isolating the counseling profession’s unique and distinguishing features from psychology and social work (Woo, 2013). It also suggests that independently licensed counselors had some connection to the fundamental set of values, beliefs, and assumptions specific to the counseling profession. Lastly, we used inferential statistics to examine the relationship between independently licensed counselors’ clarity in identifying as a counselor to others and their views on each of the five separate professional identity standards. When breaking apart these five standards, it is of note that we found significance with a moderate, positive relationship for four items: consistently identifying as a counselor to others, finding it important for independently licensed counselors to supervise students pre- and post-graduation, having students educated by counselor educators licensed and trained as counselors, and having students educated in the unique philosophy of the profession of counseling. However, the relationship between consistently identifying as a counselor and finding importance in CACREP accreditation for clinical mental health programs was not significant. Nonsignificance is