Professional Identity

The significance of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) and other professional counseling organizations in the development and growth of the counseling profession was also reviewed. Understanding what clinical mental health counselors are trained to do, being knowledgeable of the similarities and differences among therapeutic professions, and recognizing the importance of professional organizations in shaping who counselors are today is important to your development as a professional counselor and expression of a strong professional counselor identity.

Counselors continue to advocate for the counseling profession daily in an attempt to gain parity with other therapeutic professionals. It is important for you to have a clear counselor identity to help further counseling's professional advocacy efforts. As a clinical mental health counselor, you will work alongside other mental health professionals and perform many roles and functions in a variety of practice settings. As you think about what counseling is and what it involves, consider the following scenario.

Scenario:

You are a licensed counselor who just opened a private practice. Marketing and advertising are at the top of your to-do list because attracting clients is an important part of getting your practice off the ground. Your specialty is working with children and adolescents, particularly those who have experienced trauma and abuse.

You are meeting a friend for lunch and agree to meet at his office because it is close to the restaurant. You arrive at his building and while you are waiting for the elevator, you overhear a man and a woman exchange stories about children with whom they work. They describe children who have been bullied, who suffer from low self-esteem, who have attempted suicide, who come from broken homes, and who have limited support systems. Despite these concerns, they allude to the fact that the children live in a relatively affluent part of town. While they are expressing their exasperation over working with so many children with such significant problems, you conclude that the man and the woman are public school administrators.

They acknowledge that the students could benefit from professional help but feel like their hands are tied. The male principal states that he asked his school counselor to help but he is not sure the school counselor will be the right person to help.
The elevator arrives. The three of you get in. The man pushes number 25, and you push number 28. You realize that this is a golden opportunity to market yourself and your private practice. After apologizing for eavesdropping on their conversation, you introduce yourself as a licensed counselor who specializes in working with children and adolescents. Immediately after you introduce yourself as a licensed counselor, the female principal asks whether you are a psychologist.

Develop a 60-second elevator speech in response to the female principal's question. Remember, you have only 30 to 60 seconds in the elevator and this is a golden opportunity to let others know what you do as a counselor and how you could possibly be of help. Before submitting your post, you need to review a 60-second elevator speech video.
Click here to view a 60-second elevator speech.

Tasks:

In a minimum of 200 words, respond to the following:

Explain who you are (a counselor) and what you do as a clinical mental health counselor.

Describe how what you do might be similar to and, particularly, how it might be different from other mental health professionals' work.

Explain how what you learned in Module 2 will contribute to your professional growth as a new counselor-in-training.

Your discussion should clearly articulate how you conceptualize clinical mental health counseling (CMHC) and should convey that concept in a manner that others might find helpful.

Support your rationale and analysis by using at least two resources from professional literature in your response. Professional literature may include peer-reviewed journal articles you can access through the Argosy University online library resources; relevant textbooks; and websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions (websites ending in .edu or .gov).

Your discussion posts and all written assignments should reflect graduate-level writing skills and appropriate use of APA style, including in-text citations and references.