PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY PAPER

Professional Identity Paper



Professional Identity Paper

Introduction

A professional counselor identity is the level at which a counselor identifies with the profession of counseling and takes pride in being a counselor. An understanding of the history and philosophy of the counseling profession, professional roles, organizations, credentialing, advocacy for the profession and the client, and legal and ethical standards are all aspects incorporated in the professional identity and endorsed and required by CACRLP. Once a professional identity has been established it serves as a stable frame of reference from which counselors make sense of their profession (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999).

A major component of any profession is a strong association with a professional organization like The American Counseling Association (Gladding & Newsome, 2010). Moreover, social workers need to obtain professional accreditations to improve their practice and professional identities. This paper compares and contrasts the professional identitities of social workers engaged as Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC) and Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). In forming this paper class discussion, secondary research and personal interviews with an LPC and LCSW are used.

Licensed Professional Counselors

Licensed professional counselors (LPCs) render health care to mentally ill or disabled people around the U.S. LPCs are disciplined to work with families, groups and individuals in treating emotional and behavioral disorders and problems. A large percentage of workforce in mental health care organizations comprise LPCs. In the United States, over 90,000 professional counselors have license to work as accredited counselors. The training standards and education of LPC are compatible with the training standards of master's level programs for mental health. The following section illustrates the requirements for Licensed Profession Counselors.

Requirements to Become a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor

For an applicant to become a licensed professional clinical counselor, the individual must:

Have at least a master's degree from an accredited school or college in counseling or other program that meets the academic and training standards adopted by the board;

Have sixty semester graduate hours, twelve of which may be obtained in documented training or clinical experience or courses consistent with national board for certified counselor's guidelines for the clinical mental health counselor certification. A minimum of fifteen contact hours in each of the following three coursework categories must be included within the sixty semester credits required for the licensed professional clinical counselor. The three categories are:

Abnormal psychology and psychopathology;

Appraisal and diagnostic evaluation; and

Clinical counseling skills;

Have two years of post-master's clinical experience, including:

Eight hundred hours of clinical training in supervised practice and internships in settings relevant to the practice of clinical counseling. These hours may be within the required sixty graduate semester hours.

Two years (three thousand hours) of post-master's clinical experience in a clinical setting. This must include one hundred hours of face-to-face supervision (a minimum of sixty hours of individual supervision) by a board-approved supervisor. The supervisor must be a licensed professional clinical counselor, psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, or other qualified professional;

Provide three professional letters of reference. One must be from the post-master's clinical ...