Setting Our Sails: Counseling Psychology in the Age of Integrated Health Care

Abstract

Counseling psychology has a documented ability to adapt to the winds of societal, market, and professional change. Adjusting our sails to the winds of integrated care will require realizing that (a) the value systems and approaches that define our field compel us to become more involved in the movement and (b) we have the requisite expertise to do so. This article echoes the others in this Major Contribution highlighting the importance of interprofessional training for counseling psychologists and the need for integrated care professional role models. Barriers to involvement in integrated care for counseling psychologists include time and effort without institutional support, integrated care being seen as on the fringe of the field, limited training in evidence-based practices, and hesitance to move into integrated care clinics despite their high proportion of underserved patient populations. Integrated care is an incredible opportunity for counseling psychology to draw on its historical strengths and be a flagship of this paradigm shift.

Counseling Psychologists and Behavioral Health: Promoting Mental and Physical Health Outcomes

“…It is clear that counseling psychology professionals and trainees can, and ideally should, engage in behavioral health and behavioral health care practice activities that foster prevention of disease, promotion of mental and physical health, and reduction in health disparities in minority, low income, and medically underserved communities-activities that are consistent with their core values regarding multiculturalism and social justice (Nilsson et al, 2019;Perrin & Elliott, 2019). Specifically, these practice activities need to include (a) holistic counseling (which addresses mental health, physical health, and spiritual health); (b) advocacy for health and health care justice as part of social justice; (c) consultation and intervention in health care settings, with the aim of promoting culturally sensitive and patient-centered care; and (d) implementation of health promotion and prevention programs in churches, schools, and other community settings.…”