Working in a counseling service at a college or university often requires counselors to touch the deep foundation of suffering that underlies the human experience. This article will examine the philosophical underpinning of the ways in which our profession helps us respond to human suffering. I will first examine the roots of our daily work found…

Arguably, the defining feature of the counseling profession is an appreciation for human diversity. Early counseling movements emphasized individual diversity, while multiculturalism and social justice highlighted cultural diversity. The author maintains that contemporary psychoanalytic thought can supply a needed intraindividual diversity…

As workers face a changing and ever-complex employment landscape, traditional career theories and approaches may not be sufficient in meeting career challenges. Calls for integrated career theories have emerged as more people seek meaning and purpose in their lives and careers. This article proposes a career counseling option that integrates…

The author introduces a humanistic theory for school counseling called Advocating Student-within-Environment (ASE). According to this theory, the student is an adaptive agent who operates within ever-evolving environments. With ASE, a school counselor can use the capacities of the student, the school environment, and their shared agency to promote…

The authors review the history of the concept of freedom in humanistic counseling theory and present a contemporary rationale for including certain negative implications of existential indeterminate free will in the theoretical foundations of the profession. Implications for counseling and a table of definitions that clarifies unique constructs…

The author presents an overview of contemporary developments in philosophy regarding the status of truth and discusses the implications of these ideas for the practice of counseling. Counseling without truth is presented as a desirable option when a neopragmatic frame of reference is adopted.

The author presents a critical review of counselor education literature that has focused on student acquisition of theoretical orientations in order to identify the potential of these practices to facilitate critical self-reflection and theoretical fit among students. Two reflective, awareness-based pedagogical models--radical constructivism (E.…

Adherence to a variety of conceptual frameworks in psychological treatment has resulted in technical and theoretical eclecticism. Therapy techniques have become reduced to a set of tactics in which the therapist juggles conceptual frameworks in an attempt to maximize constructive behavior change. The practitioner must conceptualize his therapeutic…