Date of Award
8-1998
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology
First Advisor
Dr. Karen R. Blaisure
Second Advisor
Dr. Alan Hovestadt
Third Advisor
Dr. Ronald Werner-Wilson
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Paul Yelsma
Abstract
Over the years, numerous proposals have been made in the counselor education (CE) literature about what counseling philosophy can best lead the profession to a distinctive professional identity (Bauman & Waldo, 1998; Fong & Lease, 1994; Guterman, 1994). An issue in this debate is whether psychiatric diagnostic training forms a part of a counseling philosophy (i.e., model-for-helping) and professional identity that is more focused on client psychopathology than on normal developmental issues. This study explored how training and experience in psychiatric diagnostic categories (PDCs) influenced counselors’ development of their counseling philosophy and professional identity.
Focus-group interviews were held at four regional universities. Data from these interviews were analyzed using a form o f poststructural discourse analysis (Potter & Wetherell, 1994). Participant orientation (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) was among the methods used to validate the study results (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Results shed light on the relationships among psychiatric diagnostic training, counseling philosophy, and professional identity. Research participants’ talk about the place of psychiatric diagnostic training in their counseling philosophy and professional identity occurred in two broad, mutually exclusive ways that reflected their PDC training and experience. Research participants with more PDC training and experience talked more favorably about PDCs but were less likely to describe a distinctive counseling philosophy and professional identity. Research participants with less PDC training and experience talked less favorably about PDCs but were more likely to describe a distinctive counseling philosophy and professional identity.
Given these data, counseling students would benefit from an earlier introduction of PDCs into the counseling curriculum in a way that retains what they see as distinctive about the counseling profession while helping them integrate their counseling philosophy with the philosophy of PDCs.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
McLaughlin, Jerry E., "Influence of Psychiatric Diagnostic Training on Counseling Students’ Development of a Model-for-Helping and Professional Identity" (1998). Dissertations. 1584.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1584