CS Features – Expert Interviews, Guides, Professional Advocacy & Research in Counseling

Identity formation and re-formation occur throughout the lifespan in response to external circumstances and internal revelation. Who we are can change dramatically over the course of one lifetime, shift in subtle ways, or become fortified and rigid. There is no singular path to identity formation, so an attuned counselor adapts therapy to meet a client’s understanding of self.

The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 established a system of community-based care, rather than institutional-based care, for treating Americans with mental illness. Nearly 50 years later, that system is as important as ever.

Licensed professional counselors (LPCs) and their clients notched an important advocacy win with the passage of the Mental Health Access Improvement Act (MHAIA), which goes into effect on January 1, 2024.

We all think we know a great deal about memory and have decent study skills. While that might be true, we can always do better. Cognitive science provides insights about where we can make the learning process easier and more efficient.

Through a long history of colonization, Western society’s Eurocentric views have excluded not only individuals and cultures but entire modes of thought. That myopia has hindered the efficacy and reach of counseling and psychotherapy. Fortunately, it’s starting to change.

It is time to reject the monoamine hypothesis of depression once and for all. Alternate hypotheses focusing on stress, the gut-brain axis, inflammation, and cortisol activity might bring us closer to the truth and set the stage for more effective treatments for depression.

Gun violence is a public health crisis in the United States. Every day, over 100 Americans die from gun violence, and more than 200 survive a gunshot wound. More young people die from guns than from car crashes. The ripple effects of gun violence profoundly impact families, institutions, and communities.

The gut is home to as many as 100 trillion microorganisms, weighing about two pounds in the adult, that make up the gut microbiome. The vagus nerve can sense metabolites produced during microbiome activity.

College student culture makes bad sleep habits, such as staying up late, pounding energy drinks, having strange napping schedules, and pulling all-nighters, seem normative. Peers might single out students who actually pursue good sleep hygiene as being odd.

Codependency can be a tricky topic in the world of mental health. Broadly speaking, codependency means relying upon someone else to a detrimental extent, where the desire to help causes further harm.