Reinventing Gerocounseling in Counselor Education as a Specialization

Investigating Holistic Wellness Dimensions During Older Adulthood: A Factor Analytic Study

“…To accommodate this need, mental health professionals must be prepared to work with older adults who present with mental illness (Foster and Kreider 2009) using a combination of medical model and holistic wellness approaches within their practice (Myers andSweeney 2005, 2008). However, much of the literature mainly describes counseling older adults from a medical model perspective (Blando 2011;Cavanaugh and Whitbourne 1999;Knight 2004).…”

Counseling for Wellness With Older Adults

“…When using a wellness counseling approach with older adults, counselors should identify a clear connection between counseling practice and a specific theory of adult development (Alley, Putney, Rice, & Bengtson, ; Myers & Harper, ). Although a typical counseling curriculum includes a course on life‐span development, few counselors receive advanced training in models of adult development that focus on how older adults navigate the aging process (Foster & Kreider, ; Institute of Medicine, ). In the following paragraphs, I describe how to integrate the adult development theory of selective optimization with compensation with a wellness approach to counseling older adults.…”

Predictors of Counseling Students' Decision to Pursue a Gerocounseling Specialization

“…In addition, future prospects of any gerocounseling academic standards are not foreseeable; the first draft of the 2016 CACREP Standards does not signify a reinstallation of the original or a new gerontological counseling track for its revised standards (CACREP, ). With the increasing number of older adults, and the age‐specific challenges they bring to counseling (Foster & Kreider, ; Stickle & Onedera, ), counseling students will need opportunities to pursue gerocounselor training to serve this population effectively.…”