I have been a counselor educator in Virginia for almost thirty-four years.  I have known and worked with the pioneers of our profession who created licensure in the Commonwealth and who devoted their careers to creating a strong professional identity for counselors.  There is no question in my mind that they would oppose this petition.  The achievement of the professional identity we currently enjoy has been the result of a hard-fought effort.  This petition, if it led to a weakening of our licensure standards, would be a step backward and would be an affront to all those who devoted so much time and effort to create a strong counseling profession.  Please be aware that a strong professional identity is not an abstract concept that has no impact on our professional practice.  As a former member of the NBCC and CACREP boards, I can assure you that the acceptance of mental health counselors by the VA and Tricare would not have occurred had we not been able to clearly explain who we are and how we are different from psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals.  Any step away from being able to clearly define ourselves would seriously impede further advocacy efforts.  This is not the time to take a step backwards.  It is essential that we continue to clearly define who we are and what we do.

            I am confident that master’s level psychologists are well trained.  That is not the issue here.  The issue is that they are not counselors. The fact that counseling and psychology are separate professions is no longer arguable.  They have separate licensure boards in all fifty states and they have separate professional organizations, separate ethical standards, separate credentialing, and separate program accreditation.  They are as different from each other as both are from social work, and, although all three professions have skills in common, I have seen no effort to have those trained in psychology be licensed as social workers. That would make no less sense than having psychologists licensed as counselors.

            I would suggest that, if master’s level psychologists want to be licensed, they petition the Board of Psychology.  That is the board that represents their profession.

            I strongly oppose this petition.  The suggested changes would harm the counseling profession and could potentially harm consumers by creating confusion about the differences between psychologists and counselors.  This confusion would make it difficult for consumers to make an informed choice about what mental health care would be best for them.