Development, prevention, social justice, and wellness: Affirming the ontological basis for counseling scholarship and practice

Abstract

Kaplan et al. (2014) reported the results of a Delphi process intended to identify a consensus definition for professional counseling. The definition followed previous efforts to unify and strengthen core principles, practices, and policies pertaining to counseling and culminated in the following statement endorsed by 29 of the then 31 major counseling organizations-"Counseling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals" (Kaplan et al., 2014, p. 368). These and other processes performed by select members of the American Counseling Association (ACA) became part of the 20/20: A vision for the future of counseling, which addressed the scope of practice, credentialing, and licensing issues and offered strategic steps for the advancement of the field (e.g., Kaplan & Gladding, 2011). Although the one-sentence definition that surfaced out of the 20/20 Vision is efficiently punctilious, it is reasonable to infer that there are several assumptions and operations embedded within these words that further distinguish counseling from other allied human service professions.Almost two decades before the 20/20 Vision, Myers (1992) posited wellness, prevention, and development as the cornerstone identity features for professional counselors. More recently, other scholars have suggested that social justice is also a requisite ingredient for counseling practice, training, and scholarship (Ratts et al., 2016). Considered together, the notions of development, prevention, social justice, and wellness suggest a unique ontological position for professional counselors. Ontology is concerned with what is true, or real, and how that truth came into existence. Although subtle and complex in application, an ontology guided by development, prevention, social justice, and wellness is quite radical. In an era when managed care and evidence-based intervention protocols often drive mental health services (Hansen, 2013), it is possible that "the practice of counseling is the establishment of the prior conditions of indivisible wellness. At a personal level, counseling dialogue … is less concerned with mentalizing personal pathology but rather cultivating the most relevant and constructive opportunities for growth… as potential trajectories that can be affected and put on a different course assuming some contribution, which might include personal counseling, program development,