Motherhood is a time of significant change for a woman. Once a woman enters motherhood, she must then navigate her mothering role within the societal expectation of intensive mothering. Intensive mothering prescribes the right way to be a mother which places unrealistic standards on mothers, which can lead to negative emotional reactions. A better understanding of intensive mothering may aid in mothers’ ability to navigate the unrealistic expectations. This study sampled 525 mothers within the United States and provided insight regarding differences in intensive parenting attitudes across various demographic characteristics. The findings demonstrate differences in intensive parenting attitudes across some mother characteristics; however, there were no differences found across many characteristics indicating the pervasiveness of intensive mothering beliefs among women regardless of their personal characteristics.

Counselor education and supervision (CES) doctoral students play an important role in contributing to knowledge in the counseling profession. CES doctoral students were interviewed to explore their researcher identity, a unique self‐concept that possibly includes research self‐efficacy and interest. Issues critical to facilitating researcher identity development included confidence, the researcher voice, faculty support, and opportunities for research.

As the number of older adults increases, it is important to understand how attitudes toward aging influence society, the aging process, and the counseling profession. Ageism-defined as social stigma associated with old age or older people-has deleterious effects on older adults' physical health, psychological wellbeing, and self-perception. In spite of research indicating that the pervasiveness of ageism is growing, there are few studies, whether conceptual or empirical, related to the impact of ageism within the practice of counseling. This article includes an overview of existing literature on the prevalence and impact of ageism, systemic and practitioner-level consequences of ageism, and specific implications for the counseling profession. Discussion of how members of the counseling profession can resist ageism within the contexts of counselor education, gerontological counseling, advocacy, and future research will be addressed.

Approximately one third of women in the U.S. workforce have children 18 years of age or younger. In addition to the typical career development challenges faced by women, which include pay inequity, lower levels of education, and low career self-efficacy, working mothers do a disproportionate amount of unpaid household tasks and childcare, are seen as less competent and dedicated to their work, and face deeply entrenched cultural ideals of the best ways to be a mother. Counselors can help working mothers by being aware of their own personal bias when counseling, validating the experience of working mothers, and utilizing appropriate and supportive interventions. It is recommended that counselors also help clients, their partners, and their families develop strategies to reduce the impact of the intensive mothering culture at work and home.

College counselors work collaboratively with professionals in a variety of disciplines in higher education to coordinate gatekeeper training to prepare university community members to recognize and refer students in mental distress to support services. This article describes the cross-validation of scores on the Mental Distress Response Scale (MDRS), a questionnaire for appraising university community members' responses to encountering a student in mental distress, with a sample of faculty members. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed the dimensions of the MDRS were estimated adequately. Results also revealed demographic differences in faculty members' responses to encountering a student in mental distress. The MDRS has implications for augmenting the outreach efforts of college counselors. For example, the MDRS has potential utility for enhancing campus-wide mental health screening efforts. The MDRS also has implications for supporting psychoeducation efforts, including gatekeeper training workshops, for professional counselors practicing in college settings.