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INTRODUCTION
The human service provider field is comprised of a complex and bewildering array of overlapping and related, but separate professions that include mental health counseling, psychology, social work, marriage and family counseling, professional counseling, and psychiatry. Because each provider profession has essentially the same goals and accomplishes these by performing similar activities, human service delivery professions may seem very alike from the outside, which means that it can be very confusing to understand a profession's distinct identity. It is not particularly surprising that the nuances that distinguish these professions seem amorphous, unclear, and perhaps somewhat irrelevant to the public.
Graduate programs that train professionals for entry into a particular field spend 2 to 4 years purposefully socializing their students and providing them with a foundation in the profession's history, its knowledge and techniques, and its relevant values, attitudes, and identity themes. Moreover, persons seeking mental health services can usually be helped by virtually any of the service providers, because of the interdisciplinary nature of the knowledge and theory of intervention related to personality organization. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile for the professions to articulate their distinctions. This clarification is a vehicle to gain recognition and to vie for their legitimate position in the health care market place, and it also constitutes responsible behavior that is consistent with being accountable to the public's sanctioning of the professional work.
In terms of clarifying uniqueness, the borders of the human service delivery fields can be distinguished based on "professional identification, ... practitioner's entry level graduate degree ..., basic academic discipline, conceptualization of mental health problems, and approach to treatment" (Hersehenson & Power, 1987, p. 3). By weaving these elements into a discussion of the history of the profession, the identity which organizes its stability, and the distinctive characteristics which are included and excluded within its identity, this paper seeks to convey to readers the uniqueness of one of the youngest service provider professions, Mental Health Counseling (MHC) (cf. Pistole & Roberts, in press).
When discussing identity themes, MHC has identified itself as a profession in which the person is conceptualized both developmentally and holistically with attention to contextual influences on persons' lives (Hershenson & Power, 1987). This approach involves both systemic and individual perspectives. On the one hand, from the systems perspective, clients are embedded within and influenced by their family, societal, historical, cultural, and socioeconomic context, which means that community resources and interdisciplinary approaches can be useful in treatment. Simultaneously, the individual can be viewed as being the gestalt of multiple domains - emotional, physical, social, vocational, and spiritual - that coalesce and culminate in a more or less healthy life style. As part of the health care industry, mental health counselors focus on a wellness, holistic mental health philosophy, regardless of whether the clients' issues are more reflective of developmental struggles or more reflective of clinical pathology. That is, the profession endorses a philosophy that is focused more on strengths and wellness, as springing from the multiple synthesized domains of the person, and focused less on curing some kind of mental illness.
This way of thinking about clients is also reflected in mental health counselors' collaboration with other professionals. Traditionally, the mental health counselor has worked in a community setting (e.g., a community mental health center) and participated as a contributing member of a health care team. In parallel to viewing clients as individuals within a complex system, mental health counselors see themselves as a profession that functions and contributes within a complex system of health care providers. Thus, mental health counselors extend the contextual, holistic health model to the broad professional environment, and also focus attention on understanding other professional frameworks in order to improve their own effectiveness in interdisciplinary teams. Similarly, consistent with a growth and developmental philosophy, mental health counseling, as a profession, has been responsive to market changes within the political and social zeitgeist of health care. This flexibility is a necessary aspect of remaining vital and viable, that is, healthy, as a provider in the health care industry. Thus, during its development, MHC has demonstrated flexibility within stability: It has retained its core identity elements of development, strength, and mental health in a holistic interdisciplinary perspective, while integrating new competencies that are consistent with today's managed care environment. For instance, remedial intervention as well as the diagnosis and treatment of psychopathology has been synthesized within the mental health counselor's underlying philosophy of strengthening or restoring development and mental health (versus curing mental illness or helping clients adapt to the functional impairments which accompany mental illness).
In relation to included characteristics, MHC shares a border with professional counseling in its conceptual and philosophical perspective that is more educational, developmental, and preventive than clinical, remedial, and medical (Seiler & Messina, 1979). As mental health counselors draw on the interdisciplinary knowledge base of the behavioral sciences, they implement a scientist-practitioner approach to delivery of services. They are, by training, effective consumers of the research and theoretical literature and continue their learning throughout their careers, because their foundation for practice is the research and theory which is continually being developed and refined. Moreover, mental health counselors' practice resembles the process of science in terms of practice being based in skeptical, cautious, and evidentially-based judgment. In fact, practice constitutes the implementation of science, that is, reflects local and idiosyncratic research with each client. The research with each client is represented as an integrated way of critical thinking and a style of working from the scientific attitude of inquiry, by using theory and systematic observation to build hypotheses, collect data, interpret data, seek alternative explanations for the data, and revise hypotheses. In terms of credentials, in most states, mental health counselors obtain a license for practice. The title is often generic, termed "professional counselor," though some states use the title "mental health counselor." In addition, these professionals may hold a specialty credential as a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor.
Hershenson, D. B., & Power, P. W. (1987). Mental health counseling: Theory & practice. New York: Pergamon Press.
Palmo, A. J. (1999). The MHC child reaches maturity: Does the child seem short for its age? Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 21, 215-228.
Pistole, M. C., & Roberts, A. (in press). Mental health counseling: Toward resolving identity confusions. Journal of Mental Health Counseling.
Seiler, G., & Messina, J. J. (1979). Toward professional identity: The dimension of mental health counseling in perspective. American Mental Health Counselors Journal, 1, 3-8.
Spruill, D. A., & Fong, M. L. (1990). Defining the domain of mental health counseling: From identity confusion to consensus. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 12, 12-23.
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About the Author: M. Carole Pistole is Associate Professor of Educational Studies at Purdue University.
ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated. This publication was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Contract No. ED-99-CO-0014. Opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the positions of the U.S. Department of Education, OERI, or ERIC/CASS.
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