Influence of the Medical Model on Counseling Identity: Counselor Educators’ Experience

Abstract

This study looked closely at the experience of the influence of the medical model on counselor educators’ counseling identity. It is a phenomenological study that explored the experience of counselor educators as it related to the use of evidence-based practices in the counseling profession. This study considers the upswing in managed care for mental health, the sheer volume of diversified sub-specialties in counseling, and the impact both have on current counselor educators counseling identity (Eysenck, 1972; Carkhuff, 2019; Gladding, 2018; Calley & Hawley, 2008). The emphasis on the universal use of evidence-based practices driven by managed care and insurance companies, moves the counseling profession toward the medical model (Thompson, 2010). While some in the profession see this as a good move to legitimize the profession with the use of evidence-based measurements to show results (Miller, 2010), others feel the therapeutic alliance approach, unique to the counseling profession, will be lost (Remley & Herlihy, 2010). Although the therapeutic alliance approach is empirically based it has less hard data ways of measuring progress than the medical model. With counselor educators being the largest influence on the development of counseling identities of counselors-in-training, they are on the frontline of what future counselors will consider important in the field. This study, therefore, explores the current experience of counselor educators but also draws wider assumptions about the future of the counseling profession (Jensen, 2006). Themes emerged during the study as to how the use of the medical model in counseling impacts counselor educators counseling identity and how it impacts how the counselor educators teach their students. This study further explores how the use of the medical model in general impacts the counseling profession. Key Words: medical model, counseling identity, counselor educator, managed care, counselors-in-training