Integrated health care is playing an increasingly important role in the U.S. health care system by improving coordination of care and reducing health disparities and cost. Despite its promise, the field of counseling psychology has been slow in responding to this trend and in preparing its future workforce for this health care modality. In a series of articles, in this Major Contribution we highlight (a) the rise and benefits of integrated health care; (b) two counseling psychology programs’ training models and assessment methods for preparing their students for careers in integrated health care; and (c) the experiences, satisfaction, and challenges of counseling psychologists working in integrated health care settings.
Psychologists are increasingly represented among interprofessional health care teams, yet little is known about counseling psychologists who fulfill these roles. We interviewed 13 early career counseling psychologists in different settings across the country about their roles and functions, the nature of their relationships with other health professionals, and counseling psychology identity and values. Results showed that counseling psychologists perform a variety of duties by adapting their counseling psychology training to medical settings, and that they find this work both challenging and rewarding. Participants incorporated traditional counseling psychology pillars of prevention, diversity, social justice, and strength-based interventions to make contributions to patient and community care in integrated health care settings. Implications for training and future research are discussed.
Based on a study that compared the reports of 95 Asian transnational adoptees and their parents, results indicated that parents overestimated adoptees' openness to discussing racism and their positive attitudes toward ethnic heritage activities; however, results also revealed that parents underestimated the level of racism experienced by adoptees. Although parents' level of racial awareness made a difference in their views toward adoptees' encouraging behaviors, all parents, regardless of their racial awareness, underestimated the racism experienced by adoptees. Results speak to the need to explore Asian transnational adoptees' views of their parents' willingness to discuss issues of racism and the nature of the racial messages that they receive.
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