Mental health counseling: Toward resolving identity confusions.

The development of a professional identity is an important aspect of the training and ongoing sense of belongingness of mental health counselors. Nonetheless, there are elements of the profession's identity that, being confusing and muddled, hamper the shaping of a sharp, distinct identity. This article examines two themes related to identity confusion: establishing and producing a systematic body of theory for the profession and distinguishing the profession from other service providers. ********** An essential element of professional training is providing the knowledge and experiences for trainees so they may develop a strong understanding of their chosen field and their own identity within its traditions (Stark, Lowther, Hagerty, & Orczyk, 1986). A professional identity provides a stable frame of reference which enables persons to make sense of their work and their lives, as it contributes to both a sense of belongingness and uniqueness (Friedman & Kaslow, 1986; Heck, 1990). Yet, for persons entering training programs, who do not yet have the insights which are gained in practice and its settings, acquiring a synthesized knowledge of mental health counseling (MHC) as a distinct profession can be a confusing task: "If people are doing essentially the same things ... that will be problematic for the development of a distinct identity" (Heck, 1990, p. 533). Accordingly, for students, an understanding of the distinctiveness of the profession--its definition and its concomitant professional roles--is difficult to glean from the literature's representation of the multiple service delivery professions (cf. Beck, 1999; Capuzzi & Gross, 2001). Students' confusion about the position and identity of mental health counselors is an important issue when training persons to view themselves as belonging to a specific professional community. If mental health counselors develop little or no allegiance to their profession, it could jeopardize MHC and put the profession at a disadvantage with respect to leadership and its ability to represent itself to the public, licensing boards, and third-party payers. Previous authors have discussed identity as an aspect of the relative youthfulness of the profession and its adaptiveness in keeping pace with contextual changes in the delivery of human services (e.g., Ginter, 1991; Palmo, 1999). In some analyses, a salient identity element has been MHC's placement on the occupation-profession continuum (cf. Vollmer & Mills, 1966). Messina (1999) and others (Hershenson & Power, 1987; Palmo, 1990) have convincingly argued that MHC has accomplished the essential characteristics that indicate one's work is part of a profession and thus has attained professional status, as was the intention of its founders (Beck, 1999; Capuzzi & Gross, 2001; Hershenson & Power, 1987; Palmo, 1990). That is, there exists (a) a systematic body of theory, (b) authority to perform the work as recognized by the clientele, (c) the sanction of this authority by the broader community, (d) an ethical code (American Mental Health Counselors Association, 2000), and (e) a distinctiveness or a particular professional culture defined by values, norms, and symbols (cf. Greenwood, 1962; Vollmer & Mills, 1966). Nonetheless, because they are relevant to the identity of all members of the American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA), two perplexities related to MHC's professional status merit discussion: (a) the systematic body of theory and its concomitant expectation for research and (b) the distinctiveness of its profession from other service providers. Our discussion of these issues is embedded within our belief that MHC has exhibited vitality and success in its growth. Our comments, therefore, reflect respect and questions, not criticisms. A SYSTEMATIC BODY OF THEORY One criterion of a field's establishment as a profession is its having a systematic body of theory to a quantitatively greater extent than does an occupation (Vollmer & Mills, 1966). …