Legacies and Traditions of Counseling Psychology: When the Past Is Our Future

Abstract

The Legacies & Traditions Forum has a rich past of documenting individual contributions to the profession of counseling psychology. The history of this forum, as well as early contributors and journal articles, are identified.Themes that emerged from a review of past oral biographies include changes in the work setting for counseling psychologists, value of supportive environments, and barriers that early leaders experienced. In general, contributors to the forum have been pioneers in the profession, with many holding leadership roles in governing at the national level, and early involvement in social justice. The two-tier survey process implemented to identify those who most warrant being interviewed at this time for the forum is described. The newest co-editors will continue to invite biographical manuscripts based on the highlighted process, while also expanding the forum to include articles focusing on critical events or historically important topics within the field of counseling psychology.

Professional association leaders: Meaningful experiences of past presidents of the society of psychologists in leadership.

“…Despite the challenges described in the results section of this article, leadership of the society was a largely a positive, transformative event in their lives. These findings reinforce the historical perspective about organizational leadership (e.g., Burke, 2018;Cook & Vacha-Haase, 2010;Smith, 2020) as having the potential to provide deep learning, increase organization morale, improve leadership participation in professional associations, and demonstrate the value of creating performative narratives and history keeping.…”

“…Major organizational elements of psychology routinely take responsibility for adding their unique contributions to the ever-expanding foundations of science, practice, and education. Relatively recent examples can be found in Cook and Vacha-Haase's (2010) article on counseling psychology, Burke's (2018) examination of organization development, Smith's (2020) summary of a panel discussion on the 75-year history of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and Miles-Cohen et al's (2020) detailed exposition of the APA's long-term efforts to develop the leadership capacities of their women members. These historical views into the past can provide insight into the paths forward for psychologists and for leaders of other organizations wishing to bring together and support their members.…”