Running head: COUNSELOR IDENTITY
PAPER
Counselor Identity Paper
Ashley N. Rooney
Liberty University
COUNSELOR IDENTITY PAPER 2
Abstract
The evolution of counseling has changed and grown exponentially in the past seventy years. All
fifty states in America have accomplished licensure and a profession of help that was once seen
as “taboo”, is now being accepted as normal and healthy for those who need mental health
guidance. However, while advances in mental health and counseling have made significant
progress, there are still major setbacks that keep the profession of counseling from being united
from state to state. Education requirements, licensure titles, and accreditation processes all differ
throughout the states causing strain on each and every licensed counselor and therapist. This
paper will discuss the importance of counselor identity as an American whole, licensure earning
and education, conflictions with the disunity of counselor titles and name holding per state
requirements, personal implication and reaction as well as a portion dedicated to the
expectations, rules and results of plagiarism in a report run through a program called
SafeAssign.
Keywords: counselor identity, licensure, plagiarism, accreditation
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Summary of Articles
The article titled “Counselor Identity: A National Imperative,” discusses and provides
statistical data as well as a step by step plan that supports, explains and pushes for advocacy
changes in professional counseling as seen as a professional identity nationwide (Spurgeon,
2012). The article touches on the history of the profession of counseling and helps categorize
each individual piece of a professional identity useful and benefiting to counselors. The author
does an excellent job of shedding light on the future challenges and barriers posed to counselors.
Major changes in legal framework and regulation difficulties varying from state to state, were
just two of the trials foreseen by Spurgeon (2012). The article mentions however, how each
specific case of test and trial all add up to create a counselor identity through power of influence
and discussion. Counseling associations need to rely on the efforts of advocacy and support for
universal laws and regulation to help secure their determinations as successful (Spurgeon,
2012). The article finishes strong with a call to unify education and accreditation standards in
order to create a stronger sense of counselor identity in each counselor nationwide. By creating a
strong professional identity, the counselor can then be a positive contribution to the counseling
profession as a whole (Spurgeon, 2012.)
Lawson et al. (2017) is a strongly written article advocating for proper instructional
measures with counselor licensure laws and regulations that pertain to the shaping of counselor
identity. The authors state the evolution of counseling is progress at normal speed but in the last
ten years, made more progress than ever expected. This evolution of counseling has brought
demands for standardized licensure from state to state as well as a standardized education
progress (Lawson et al., 2017). Lawson et al. (2017) dive into the historical as well as cultural
events that impacted and continue to impact counseling. These events, they believe, have created
COUNSELOR IDENTITY PAPER 4
an advocacy that can be used in approaching the issues of standardized educational requirements
and guidelines involved in state counselor licensure and the laws and regulations that come with
it. Expansion of standards to assist in the development of professionalism, as well as legal
programs per state law, are both factors that affect the counseling profession as a whole. An
advocacy model presented in the article is often believed to be used by counselors to promote
more efficient educational advices that can be used to advance the overall usefulness of services
that are practiced and provided by counselors (Lawson et al., 2017).
The audio podcast entitled “What makes a Counselor a Counselor?” produced and
recorded by Shook (2017), provides a unique prospective of a counselor who speaks on
integrating key parts of a person’s professional identity into being a leader who guides people
with counseling. The interviewee, Dr. Carl Sheperis, mentions how he chooses to view
counseling as a profession rather than a field of study or practice. He explains, professionals
must understand but mostly engage in practices that constantly help expand their professional
knowledge.
Next, Dr. Sheperis speaks about having unity on issues presented to the American
Counseling Association (ACA) could help progress the rules and regulations for the counseling
profession (Shook, 2017). This is the challenge, Dr. Sheperis explains, due to the lack of
agreement in ACA, trials arise creating disunity when attempting to improve the counseling
profession as a whole. The podcast touched on three important fundamentals to help grow and
prosper the profession of counseling. The 20/20 Vison idea includes plans to unite education
requirements, laws and title holding. By uniting workers of the counseling profession, Shook
(2017) and Dr. Sheperis believe effective change will be made to further advance the already
changing profession of counseling.
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Reactions to Articles
Based on the in depth reading of both articles and podcast, I have come to classify
professional identity for counseling as having strong value and morals, relationship with core
counseling foundations, and always understanding the importance of counseling. In my personal
opinion, I agree with Lawson et al. (2017) on the statement that counseling is evolving and
continues to evolve. Just in the last ten years, we as a counseling community have seen so many
laws, accreditations and regulations created and altered in order to provide people with the
upmost care and best of services. I agree with the movement to create nationwide education and
licensure laws in order to create an environment that is unifying to counselors. By having laws
and licensure be universal in every state, counselors would be able to work anywhere they saw
fit without the worry of studying to pass each individual state licensure exam.
The podcast was personally my favorite source of information assigned for this paper. Dr.
Carl Sheperis presents his interview in a way that is easy to understand but also filled with
factual knowledge and opinion that is both riveting and inspiring. Shook (2017) alongside Dr.
Sheperis advocate for the unification of counseling in every branch. I agree with this push for
law change and believe it would benefit the counseling community more than anyone realizes.
By changing education standards, editing principles and guidelines to create a general law and by
making licensure useable in every state, counselors would feel as though they have more
freedom. Counselors have been advocating for these motions and to have them worked into a
plan for 2020, counselors finally feel as though their voice has been heard.
The use of the advocacy model would benefit the counseling field tremendously (Lawson
et al., 2017). This would open doors for the use of a social justice type approach that would
provide clients with counselors to advocate for them in more than one social system. By enabling
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and encouraging clients, it serves as a secondary way to create advocates of them in their own
communities.
Summary and Reactions to Safe Assign Report
I am quite familiar with SafeAssign, as it was a tool Liberty had used all the years I
studied my undergraduate degree. I submitted this paper and within only an hour, I received my
results. Like predicted, references, titles and in-text citations were all considered as plagiarisms
in the SafeAssign report. My originality report scored me with 27% plagiarism. It considered
five of my citations as copied from other students’ papers. When reviewing my score, I was
pleased that the only matches were references. The body of my paper, including the abstract was
completely original. It is a relief to see your hard work and hours of time pay off. I have
experienced, at other times, papers that have given me reports with higher percentages of
plagiarism. These took place during my freshman and sophomore years of college. I attribute
this to the fact that I was younger and still learning how to properly cite my sources as well as
paraphrase ideas.
SafeAssign is an excellent way to prevent plagiarism. While most college students do
not approach paper writing with the intentions of plagiarizing, this program reduces the number
of intentional and unintentional plagiarisms that students at Liberty University have. This
program has helped me improve my citation usage and APA reference writing. SafeAssign has
also pushed me to become an innovative writer and to constantly challenge myself and the way I
paraphrase and cite sources used in my paper writing. By having SafeAssign as a means to
protect from plagiarism, each student must work to create their own thoughts and opinions while
using knowledge of their school’s preferred writing style. SafeAssign challenges me to be a
critical thinker and work hard on writing papers that I am proud to submit to my professors.
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References
Lawson, G., Trepal, H.C, Lee, R. W., Kress, V. E. (2017). Advocating for educational standards
in counselor licensure laws. Counselor Education and Supervision, 56, 162-176.
Shook, M. (Producer). (2017, February 8). What Makes a Counselor a Counselor? Professional
Identity and Other Musings with Carl Sheperis [Audio Podcast]. The Thoughtful
Counselor. Retrieved from http://wp.me/p7R6fn-8u
Spurgeon, S. (2012). Counselor identity: A national imperative. Journal of Professional
Counseling, Practice, Theory, and Research, 39, 3-16 .
