DISCUSS STRENGTH-BASED ASSESSMENTS IN MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING

Discuss strength-based assessments in mental health counseling

Discuss strength-based assessments in mental health counseling

Introduction

There are currently powerful dissimilarities of attitude among counselor educators and practitioners about what facets of counseling are encompassed in the term mental wellbeing counseling. These dissimilarities, which appear to become more pronounced each year, may be the natural method of the evolution of counseling. Rather than working in the direction of a consensual view, although, we see the counseling investigation splitting up and construction bewildering and wasteful duplicate organizations as therapy professionals cling to distinct delineations and terms that no longer comprise the area accurately.

Two demonstrations of replicate organizations are in the localities of credentials and accreditation. We have two credentialing boards, the National Board of Certified Counselors and the National Academy of Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselors. Likewise the current accreditation standards of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2008) contain two different sets of standards for a program that prepares counselors to work in data gathering settings. The program can select to apply for accreditation in either community counseling or mental health counseling (see Spruill & Fong, 2000, for a more detailed discussion of this problem). Regardless of individual perspectives, however, when the term mental health counseling is used we have found counselor educators in general think of counseling that is provided in community (data gathering) agencies.

The term mental health implies a dynamic continuum that is not only the absence of abnormality but also a state of well-being (Winett, King, & Altman, 2009). Summarizing definitions of mental health, Altrocchi (2000) stated that mental health is an ideal conception, the precise definition of which varies among mental health professionals. He noted that most definitions encompass the positive qualities of the development of identity, achievement of competence in work, and a striving for self-actualization as well as absence of abnormal behavior.

Therefore, when "mental health" is used to modify words such as professional or services, it denotes a professional scope or a continuum of services that is developmental, environmental, and ecological, as well as remedial. In contrast, the terms psychiatric, clinical, and mental disorder are used to connote services limited in scope to persons with maladaptive behaviors or mental illness.

Illustrative of the contemporary scope of activities considered mental health services, Winett, King, and Altman (2009) described necessary mental health services in their integrative psychology textbook. They emphasized interventions that focus on competencies, strengths, coping, resources, negotiating life transitions, and managing stressors as the core of mental health services. Clearly, all forms of counseling fit within the commonly accepted descriptions of mental health, and counseling is indeed one of the core mental health counseling.

Strength-Based Assessments in Mental Health Counseling

Mental fitness practice guidelines identify that socio-cultural problems are essential to pootential based estimations of the requirements of persons with mental disabilities. An additional socioculturally learned estimation might show the way to added individualized treatment plans with enhanced consumer ...