Counselor or change agent: support from the profession

Abstract

This article supplements the ideas on counseling and the social revolution which appeared in the May 1971 P&G-especially regarding the common behavior models of the counselor and the change agent. Because adherence to a model often places a counselor in jeopardy, the authors call on the profession to offer support and leadership on a national level to those counselors who wish to act as change agents.

The Elderly, Oppression, and Social‐Change Counseling

“…Such an approach to counseling would mandate that counselors work to change the system rather than the client. Many authors since 1970 have proposed the implementation of a social-change approach to counseling to supplement and in some cases supplant the more traditional personal-change approach (Adams, 1973;Atkinson, Morten, & Sue, 1979;Baker & Cramer, 1972;Banks & Martens, 1973;Ciavarella & Doolittle, 1970;Cook, 1972;Drew, 1973;Dustin, 1973;Dworkin & Dworkin, 1971;Lewis & Lewis, 1977;Manacker, 1976;Pine, 1976;Warnath, 1973).…”

Counselors and Juvenile Delinquents: Toward a Comprehensive Treatment Approach

“…Of course, advocacy has to be practiced with care by the professional counselor. Quite apart from the fact that counselors who get too "uppity" may lose their jobs (Baker & Cramer, 1972), each time a counselor performs some task for a client, the individual's sense of personal responsibility is apt to be diminished. Nobel's (1968) point is well taken that a lack of power over others may be a counselor's most precious commodity.…”

Ratings of helper roles by multicultural psychologists and Asian American students: Initial support for the three-dimensional model of multicultural counseling.

“…The rationale for unconventional counseling roles is that conventional roles assume that problems reside within individual clients, whereas many problems confronted by diverse populations are a function of their environment, not some internal psychological mechanism (Katz, 1985; Smith, 1985). A spate of articles in the early 1970s (e.g., Adams, 1973; Baker & Cramer, 1972; Banks & Martens, 1973; Ciavarella & Doolittle, 1970; Cook, 1972; Warnath, 1973) called on counselors and psychologists to implement the proactive roles of social advocate and social change agent, for example, when working with disfranchised groups. Although little research has been conducted on unconventional counseling roles, some support for the social advocate and change agent roles has been found among high school students, parents, administrators, teachers, and counselors (Atkinson et al, 1977).…”