CS Features – Expert Interviews, Guides, Professional Advocacy & Research in Counseling
Joining a counseling profession is about more than understanding licensing requirements and reading step-by-step guides. This is a profession committed to continued education, listening, and learning. To be a successful counselor or therapist, you have to be engaged with and aware of the larger conversations in the community.
Whether you are just starting your counseling career or already working in the field, CS features cover topics relevant to you. It holds scholarship and resource guides, expert interviews, tips for avoiding burnout and compassion fatigue, discussions of the latest academic research, and detailed analyses of the most pressing advocacy issues within counseling professions. Overall, we bring you into the conversation around the biggest issues in counseling and professions today.
How School Counselors Can Address the Youth Mental Health Crisis
08/22/24
America is experiencing a mental health crisis, and mental health struggles amongst the nation’s youth are intensifying. Student mental health is in a precarious place, with children and teens exposed to more information, more social contact, and more discord than ever before. The student mental health crisis is pervasive.
The Link Between Trauma and Substance Misuse
08/13/24
Many clients who struggle with substance misuse have experienced childhood or adult trauma. This is not to say every client who has had one or multiple past traumas will misuse substances. When treating clients with trauma, it is important to remember these experiences create a vulnerability in some individuals.
Fat Stigma, Disordered Eating, and Ozempic
07/31/24
I subscribe to a number of medical newsfeeds, and the responses from the physicians to the GLP-1 agonists can only be described as “giddy.” Doctors spoke of their joy at “finally” having something that could help their patients lose weight.
Half of Schools in the U.S. Encourage Use of Gender-neutral Pronouns for Inclusivity
07/30/24
Schools can be inclusive of transgender and nonbinary students and support them in initiating that conversation with peers and teachers; however, not all schools do, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2022 school profile data. The data released in March 2024 shows that the state a child lives in can impact whether or not they feel welcome at school—a dynamic with potentially deadly consequences for LGBTQ+ youth.
Somatic Therapy: Letting Go of Stress
07/24/24
Somatic therapy focuses on the client’s physical experience by identifying how their body stores and releases stress. For many, this approach is quite intuitive, yet some anxious clients may initially struggle. Stressed out, over-caffeinated, and bouncing between past regrets and existential crises, they may have spent many years bypassing the discomfort in their bodies, doing mental gymnastics to stay cerebral.
Flags for Mental Health: How to Spot Signs of a Struggling Child
07/10/24
Many families grapple with this question when trying to identify underlying mental health issues their child may be facing. Still, it is a complicated question. Throughout the stages of development—from toddlerhood to the preteen years and beyond—different challenges emerge, and each stage is defined by very different behaviors.
Teaching Clients How to Use Mindfulness
06/10/24
Many clients disconnect from their thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations to mentally survive. The practice of mindfulness helps clients heal by teaching them techniques that bring their attention to the present moment.
Understanding Anticipatory Grief
05/14/24
Anticipatory grief is a form of grieving before a death or loss. It can present at the end of life, during a terminal diagnosis, the end of a meaningful relationship, or a significant life shift. For some clients who have experienced trauma, anticipatory grief can appear at any time during the life cycle, being triggered by traumatic stimuli.
The Growing Demand for Bilingual Substance Use Counselors in the U.S.
03/28/24
Society’s focus on destigmatizing substance use and mental health conditions while providing better treatment plans has helped millions of people pursue care. Still, counseling is tough for some because they can’t find anyone who understands or speaks their language.
Why Most Americans Who Need Substance Use Disorder Treatment Don’t Get It
03/26/24
More than 39 million adults with a substance use disorder did not receive treatment in 2022, according to the latest data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Nearly 95 percent of those not receiving treatment didn’t believe they needed help—but for 1.8 million adults who thought they did, barriers to treatment left them unwilling or unable to get support.