Establishing rapport, building therapeutic alliance, and establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries are all important therapeutic skills especially when working with victims of military sexual trauma (MST). Along with being caring psychotherapists, clinicians may be called upon to play a key part in third-party issues, such as legal issues including custody battles or in reporting on clients for MST Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) service-connected disability benefits. This chapter reviews psychotherapeutic issues that arise when treating those with MST, specifically, barriers to treatment, establishing trust and rapport, boundaries, third-party issues, and documentation. The issues that prevent MST survivors from seeking mental health treatment mirror problems that service members may have had in reporting it, including fear of blame and stigma. To protect clients and therapists alike, it is also important to be mindful of other common boundary testing by trauma clients.

Microskills are the basic foundational skills involved in effective counseling that facilitate the process of counseling and alliance formation. The success of counseling interventions depends largely on these skills, which help to create the necessary conditions from which positive change can take place. Children and adolescents are in the process of developing emotional competency. Often, due to their own challenges, parents and other adults in their lives have modeled avoidance of uncomfortable feelings. Many expressive techniques have been used to compliment a wide range of psychotherapy and counseling theories, including psychoanalytic, object relations, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, transpersonal, and others. Without formal training in play or art therapy, counselors can simply utilize play and drawing to help children relax, to be creative, to be active in their treatment, to use their imagination in corrective ways, and to develop the therapeutic environment and relationship.

The chapters of the book examine neuroplasticity as it manifests in maturation, development, information processing, and the disorders associated with each. Growth, development, and integration of neural networks, as manifestations of neuroplasticity, are the mechanisms underlying consciousness, parenting, interpersonal relationships, and the healing process of psychotherapy. Today, neuroplasticity is increasingly understood to be an underlying mechanism of neurofunction at any age. The adult brain appears to possess a tendency toward neural stabilization, while at the same time maintaining a potential for plastic reorganization. More and more, we see evidence that the brain is capable of reorganization in response to changes in stimulation. Some examples of these changes are dramatic and result, in great part, from the application of sensory stimulation. The robust effect of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing in type I posttraumatic stress disorder is one such example.

Mental health policy and treatment were formulated in ways that reflect historical events, the development of fields such as psychiatry and social work, and political and financial realities and incentives. This chapter addresses the history of the mental health system and the national, state, and local policies that regulate treatment of the mentally ill. It helps social workers trace the development of mental health services and the role of social work through American history, analyze the historical role of asylums for the mentally ill within society, and discuss the reasons for deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill that began in the 1950s. The chapter offers a chronological examination of the highlights in the history of mental health treatment. Details covered include: The beginning of mental health state care: asylums, through to the 2000s: parity and universal health. The chapter also examines the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996.

It is important for beginning Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CMHC) students to understand that their engagement in the CMHC specialty is one part of the larger professional counseling framework. This chapter provides a historical overview of the counseling profession and its developmental trajectory, emphasizing the origins of mental health treatment and the reemergence of counseling as a wellness-based approach. It offers discussion concerning the push toward a pathogenic model of conceptualizing mental illness and the subsequent, current resurgence of a strength-based notion of care. The chapter provides an overview of the major theories of counseling as a means for understanding the development of counseling as a unique and separate field from psychology, psychiatry, and social work. It identifies the specializations within the counseling field, the range of employment opportunities and the current labor market, and how counseling is integrated within a system-of-care approach.

This chapter examines what mental health is and ideas about why African Americans manifest lower rates of mental health problems than expected. It explores theories of African American mental health proposed by Wilcox, Ramseur, and Edwards. The chapter explains thriving and examines factors that impact mental health for African Americans including socioeconomic status, discrimination, and mistrust. It discusses John Henryism and the Strong Black Woman ideology as they relate to mental health for African Americans. The chapter also discusses mental health stigma along with how it relates to mental health treatment and perceptions of self. It examines the strengths that African Americans manifest, which can improve mental health. The chapter also discusses specific mental health issues in the African American community including factors such as depression, substance use, and psychotherapy. Finally, it explores the issues concerning the future of mental health among African Americans such as increasing the number of African American mental health professionals.

The Counseling Theories course could be considered the lifeblood of a counseling program. It sets the tone for master’s degree students’ experience in not only the counseling program but the way the students conceptualize theory and how students relate theory to practice. This course introduces students, some for the very first time, to the theories designed to guide the practices of counselors. This course also aids students in discovering and building a framework for the process of understanding, interpreting, and putting theory into action. We call this course the “Road Map course” for three reasons. The first reason is because counseling theories can act as maps for beginning counselors, which provide direction when working with clients. The second reason is because, as the students become more settled into internship and the start of their careers, theories help to facilitate the integration process of the skills, philosophy, and self into sessions. Lastly, the third reason is because action in session needs to be immediate. Theory can be instrumental in guiding action or a response to the unpredictable circumstances of therapy.