The pregnancy and postpartum periods are full of major life transitions. So often, the focus of the literature is about the unborn baby and physical changes a woman experiences throughout this timeframe. Many sources often overlook women’s personal experiences in the perinatal period. Despite an increase in perinatal mood and...
Tabletop role-playing games (TRPG) such as Dungeons & Dragons™ are widely known and enjoyed by diverse individuals across the world. However, TRPGs and their players historically have experienced significant stigmatization due to the misconception by some that fantasy role play leads to psychological dysfunction. While a large body of research...
The dehumanization of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) and marginalized communities does not end once an individual is released from an institution. The dehumanization process is kept alive with ineffective community supervision and the stigma associated with an individual’s incarnation history. Evidence of this continual dehumanization process is reflected...
The counseling profession has historically adopted a one-size-fits-all approach toward addressing bereavement. However, there is an emerging paradigm-shift in grief therapy that has been enabled by recent research that differentiates, for example, between types of grief and styles of grieving. This research project contributes to this nuanced approach to grief...
Play therapy is a unique skill set within psychotherapy that combines the language of play with other forms of communication to promote healing and growth in children and adolescents. This therapeutic approach involves utilizing toys, pretend play, structured and unstructured activities, and various interactions to foster a therapeutic relationship. By...
Domestic violence (DV) is pervasive worldwide and has negative psychological effects that last a lifetime. Although DV is a problem that affects all societies, it is addressed through varied legal responses and with gaps in comprehension when examined through a cultural lens. The findings of these studies have the potential...
Counseling as a profession has been on a journey of self-examination as CACREP approaches the release of its revised standards and the world recovers from the tumultuous few years under the shadow of the pandemic. Cultural shifts in perspective have prompted new conversations around concepts related to sexuality, racial identity,...
Corpus linguistics studies involving lyrics continue to grow. While previous research has pointed to a positive relationship between certain personality traits and music types, the relationship between lyrics and suicide is understudied. As such, mental health researchers and practitioners have little sense of how the language of someone who has...
The process of coming out by an individual of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ+) community involves recognition and disclosure, and it is a personal and important part of identity development. The process of coming out is also a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community’s self-disclosure of their sexual...
The counseling field is infused with multiculturalism and social justice competencies from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs accreditation standards of the academic institutions to the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics. Counselors are tasked with understanding multiculturalism from self-awareness to clients’ worldviews to larger implications...
The very essence of talk therapy is rooted in the spoken word between counselor and client. A client’s painful traumatic experiences can often serve as a barrier to accessing the traditional consulting room. Despite the high prevalence of trauma and its status as a known risk factor for nearly all...
With growing recognition of adolescence as the time in which suicidal thoughts and behaviors first occur, early identification and intervention systems in schools have become an international
priority. Understanding and incorporating language indicators associated with the core psychological and interpersonal processes of adolescent suicidality could provide promising tools for school...
The self-help literature is full of texts on both self-compassion and postpartum depression. However, there has been minimal scientific exploration of the literature on these topics. As such, mental health researchers and practitioners have little sense of the psycholinguistic discourse contained in this literature. This study aimed to fill this...
Spirituality is an important component in the lives of many Black Americans. Black American life has spirituality woven into multiple aspects. From what clothes to wear, what words to use when creating a dialogue with others, which television shows to watch, which jobs to pursue, how to treat those who...
Ethical and training standards across counseling-related professions contain competencies related to race and ethnicity as necessary research and practice components. One such counseling-related sub-specialty is Play Therapy, which acknowledges that professionals utilizing play therapy techniques must consider racial and cultural context, trauma, and intersectionality when working with children. However, there...
Counselor education programs traditionally have student counselors role-play therapy sessions to enhance skills in rapport building, aligning with a theoretical orientation, and other essential communication skills. Students, however, are often left to determine their own choice of words when engaging in these practice sessions, and consequently, experience uncertainty regarding how...
Establishing a therapeutic alliance or a therapeutic bond has long been seen as an essential component of obtaining positive treatment outcomes in clinical practice. More recently, the idea of recognizing therapeutic alliance ruptures (disagreements about the tasks or goals of therapy or a problem in the therapeutic bond) during counseling...
Understanding the spiritual worldview of clients is a core element of multicultural competency for mental health professionals. One spiritual and religious population is members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and related Latter-day Saint populations. The Book of Mormon is an important sacred text of this population....
Counselors are tasked with being knowledgeable about assessing and treating a broad range of mental health issues. There has been an overall rise in mental health symptoms in individuals during the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the increased use of online internet forums as part of help-seeking behaviors. Obsessive-Compulsive...
Research on grief has been studied for nearly a century to understand its many facets, expressiveness, and timing. In the field of counseling, many changes in theories, models, and the lenses through which loss is responded to have been accomplished. However, one constant in the U.S. culture is that definitions...
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has reached a level of authority and ubiquity within the mental health field. It is the guidance force in insurance reimbursement or coverage for mental health treatment, determinations of disability related to mental health and in determinations of competence to stand...
Counselors, therapists and other mental health professionals are dedicated to finding more useful ways to prevent, assess and treat adolescents experiencing suicidal ideation. Recent research has shown that the use of Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide (IPTS) components in suicidal assessment and treatment have been effective for treating adults. However, a...
The professions of counseling, marriage and family therapy, and social work are highly controlled with regulators frequently issuing findings of professional misconduct against clinicians. Although much research has been conducted with regard to clinician professional misconduct in general, there is a scarcity of research investigating the relationship between gender and...
Over the last few decades, Hispanic enrollment in postsecondary education has increased significantly. Despite increased access to higher education, there are still clear issues of educational equity when graduation and persistence rates are evaluated. While these alone are imperfect measures, they shed light on a burgeoning issue within the American...
The Latino K-12 student population in the United States continues to increase. Estimates are that by 2025, one in every three students in the country will be of Hispanic/Latino origin. The challenges to the educational system from such growth are unprecedented. At no other time in U.S. history has there...
The number of deaths by suicide each year in the United States is rising. Men, women, and people of all ages die by suicide at high rates. Someone diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia is at significantly greater risk of completing or attempting suicide, making clear the importance of understanding how...
On social media platforms and on blog sites, disordered behavior as a lifestyle choice is a growing trend that supports and promotes behaviors related to self-harm and anorexia. Web content advocating self-harm and anorexia can be found easily through search engines or can be concealed in the social media sphere...
Gifted education has historically involved disproportionate rates of identification and enrollment for both students of color and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, depriving these groups of more challenging learning opportunities. Giftedness transcends subgroups, spanning all racial, socioeconomic, and disability categories; still, data indicate that Asian and White students are identified...
For good reason, suicide is of growing concern across the nation; rates continue to increase annually in the United States. Accurate assessment remains an obstacle to effective treatment for individuals who are suicidal. Without proper screening, a client cannot get a referral to see a specialist and therefore cannot receive...
Mental health professionals are dedicated to improving outcomes in therapy. Research over the past 50 years has shown psychotherapy to be effective in both improving the functioning of and diminishing the overall distress experienced by clients. Several factors have been constant predictors of outcome in therapy, including length of treatment,...
Addiction is a word that represents a condition that, at best, causes minor disruptions to one’s life and, at worst, is lethal. The current definition was developed by 80 neuroscientists. It references substance use and other behaviors and includes food and sex. Addictions do not seem to be lessening but...
Attention to the benefits of mindfulness practice transcends the fields of mental health and medicine. Extensive research has explored the use of mindfulness-based practices in counseling and psychotherapy. Benefits of mindfulness practice, both during session and in cases in which mindfulness was only practiced by the therapist outside of session,...
Treatment providers seek low-cost, high-impact means of engaging clients in care with the aim to enhance treatment delivery and outcomes. With improvements to mobile technology making cell phone accessibility and usage rates high across all socio-economic levels, text messaging is becoming more frequently utilized as a means of promoting provider-client...
Almost two decades have passed since the publication of Jackson and Leffingwell’s (1999) influential article on math anxiety in preservice school teachers and their worst math experiences. The present dissertation represents both a replication and an extension of the original study. Study Arm A was the replication study with preservice...
Self-harm is a frightening phenomenon that affects adolescents and young adults all over the world. While non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has a high prevalence rate, it is not a new behavior. One of the earliest documented cases of NSSI was in ancient Greece and it has gained popularity amongst adolescents. NSSI...
Mental illness is a universal phenomenon, but cultural context has a profound influence on how it is perceived, classified, and treated. Most systematic research on public attitudes toward mental illness has been completed in Western societies. The emergence of multicultural psychotherapy in the West has helped professionals recognize the extent...
The scientific way of knowing, which results in tremendous advancements in our society, heavily depends on the use of mathematics. Given that math touches nearly every aspect of peoples’ lives in different ways, it is critical that today’s students and tomorrow’s citizens have a solid understanding of math. Unfortunately, a...
Relationship health has many benefits, from physical and emotional health of the partners to their children’s wellbeing. Early intervention programs protect relationships from decline. These programs represent growing public health initiatives. However, most studies on wellness or early intervention overlook lesbian and gay male couples. Research that assumes lesbian and...
In the United States, the utilization of digital media has assumed an omnipresent status and has altered the manner in which we communicate, conduct business, and create art and music. However, it has been demonstrated that art therapy lags behind the current culture of prolific use of digital media. To...
Because of disease, industrialization, and regional conflicts, young widowhood is an expanding phenomenon in many parts of the world. Young widows face many challenges that can lead to mental health problems. The young widows have to make adjustments to fit their new roles as bread winners of the families, having...
Bullying cultivates insecurity and fear while generating attention for the perpetrator and degrading the student-victim in front of others. The act erodes the self-efficacy and identity of minority students more specifically and produces a hostile climate that undermines the learning and social development to all affected. Despite the pervasive negative...
The American School Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics states that counselors and counselor trainees must be competent providers of multicultural counseling, able to practice effectively with clients whose identities differ from their own. Pre-service school counselors receive very little training around immigration status and how to work with clients who...
The illicit use of opioids among young adults (18–25) has resulted in an increase of clients needing substance abuse treatment. Treatment programs are struggling to keep up with the influx of these young adults. Traditional models of care have some impact; however, there are not enough treatment centers that can...
Professional organizations in the fields of counseling and psychotherapy-related professions all require counselors and counseling students to work with a vast array of potential clients who may differ significantly from themselves. For example, these counselor and client differences can include one or several factors such as age, race, ethnicity, ability...
The American Counseling Association's Code of Ethics states that counselors and
counselor trainees must be competent providers of multicultural counseling, able to practice
effectively with clients whose identities differ from their own. Counseling students and trainees
receive very little training around sexual orientation and how to work with clients who...
Doctoral training programs in counselor education require a dissertation, a capstone project in the academic training and development of graduate students seeking a PhD or an EdD. The dissertation is expected to contribute new knowledge to the profession through the researcher reporting the results of research. The counselor education literature...
Latinos have the lowest high school completion rates in the United States (United States Census, 2010). School counselors are well positioned to lead the efforts to increase these rates. Indeed, such leadership is mandated by both the ethical and program standards of the American School Counselor Association. However, little is...
The field of threat assessment and management in higher education is in the early stages of development. In particular, little is noted in the research literature about the practices of threat assessment teams in this environment. To fill this knowledge gap, a random national sample of 15% (n = 148)...
There is a knowledge gap concerning the outcomes of early adolescent sexual initiation (ASI). In particular, the influence of early ASI upon adult attachment is unknown. A multiple regression study was conducted to address this knowledge gap. Adult partner/spouse attachment was the criterion variable, and the predictor variables included both...
Clinical supervision serves a key component in ensuring practitioners' competency and professional identity. This practice also allows more skilled clinicians to serve as gatekeepers to the field, which helps protect clients and the profession. As the use of the Internet increases, many clinical services, including supervision, are more common in...
Grief--the reaction to a significant loss--is a near-universal human experience, from which a subset of grievers (10%-15%) have difficulty recovering, placing them at high risk for negative health and mental health outcomes (Marks, Jun, & Song, 2007). For those showing substantial distress, counseling has been shown to be an effective...
Older adults are the fastest growing population in the United States, and their numbers are expected to continue rising over the next few decades. The number of older adults with psychiatric disorders such as anxiety is also increasing. Increases in the population of older adults and in the incidence of...
The prevalence of addiction in society has called researchers, educators, policy makers, and clinicians to examine and research causes and treatment approaches to address the manifold problems addictions present individuals and society alike. There are many theoretical approaches to understanding addiction and the behavior change processes that lead from addiction...
Taiwan has undergone significant social change, particularly in the last forty years, due to economic and industrial growth. Career development intervention is increasingly urgent in helping students face upcoming challenges. This study investigates the implementation and perceived helpfulness of career development interventions in Taiwanese comprehensive high schools. A total of...
Major psychotic disorders are one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, having severe impacts on the people who suffer from the conditions, their families and society. There is evidence that if these conditions are identified and treated early, the prognosis is improved. The purpose of this dissertation study is...
The Change in Alcohol Consumption of Important People to Clients measures the relationship between outcomes of clients’ alcohol treatment and the changes in alcohol consumption by important people (IP) in clients’ social networks. The prevalence of alcoholism in America continues to negatively impact individuals and society, yet few people with...
The present study investigated the relationship between mental health counselor's self-efficacy and multicultural counseling competency. Counselor self-efficacy and multicultural counseling competency were assessed using two self-report measures. The Counselor Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES) and the Multicultural Counseling Awareness Scale: Form B (MCAS:B) were administered to members of the Oregon Mental Health...
Suicide is the primary cause of death of adolescents in Ireland. While much attention has been given this phenomenon, no research has specifically examined the role of guidance counsellors in secondary schools in Ireland in addressing this phenomenon. The purpose of this research was to examine the self-efficacy of guidance...
This dissertation reviews the literature on the specialty area of dolphin assisted therapy (DAT), a subfield of animal assisted therapy (AAT). To date the literature on the effectiveness of DAT has been mixed although a majority of it is positive. The study was conducted with 40 parents whose children were...
Although some studies have demonstrated different career development interventions to be associated with positive student outcomes such as increased academic achievement, increased educational planning and increased career maturity, there has been no investigation of different quantities of career development interventions related to the student outcomes motivation and self-efficacy. Substantial research...
The purpose of this dissertation is to ascertain if there is a significant difference in the counselor rating of the bond component of the Working Alliance between Theist clients and their counselors and Atheist/Agnostic clients and their counselors. Measures of client religiosity, Working Alliance, and Treatment Arm from the Project...
Multicultural competency has been established as important component of communicating within a cross-cultural ecology. Yet, there is evidence that many counselors struggle to communicate and interact outside of their own cultural communication norms. Until this study, no one has attempted to integrate culture and intelligence as a unitary counseling construct....