Janet E. Helms

Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents Feminist and Multicultural Principles in Action

Despite recent calls for counseling psychology to embrace social justice-oriented work, there has been little discussion about what such work actually looks like. The first part of this article derives a set of principles from feminist and multicultural counseling theories that counseling psychologists should consider as they engage in social justice work. These include (a) ongoing self-examination,(b) sharing power, (c) giving voice, (d) facilitating consciousness raising, (e) building on strengths, and(f) leaving clients the tools to work toward social change. The second part of the article describes a program designed to integrate social justice work into the core curriculum of the Boston College doctoral program. The authors discuss ways in which the above principles have shaped students; activities, and some of the ethical dilemmas that have emerged. Finally, the article under-scores professional obstacles that counseling psychologists doing social justice work are likely to face, and offers recommendations for overcoming them.

Treating Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficients as Data in Counseling Research

Scientific associations and measurement experts in psychology and education have voiced various standards and best-practice recommendations concerning reliability data over the years. Yet in the counseling psychology literature, there is virtually no single-source compilation and articulation of good practices for reporting, analyzing, and interpreting reliability to guide applied researchers intending to use scales rather than develop them. Therefore, focusing on Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliability estimates, this article (a) defines and provides rationales for seven broad categories of good practices for reporting, analyzing, interpreting, and using reliability data and (b) illustrates some pragmatic strategies for implementing the good practices with respect to reliability data in quantitative studies involving already-developed scales. The authors’ recommendations for good rather than best practices acknowledge that additional or alternative practices may be required when scale development is the researcher’s focus. The authors summarize their good practices in tabular form.

A Pragmatic View of Social Justice

Vera and Speights (2003 [this issue]) use of the current Multicultural Competencies (Sue et al., 1998) to criticize all multicultural cultural social justice interventions may be unfair. The author offers some perspectives on shifting the focus of counseling psychology to marginalized groups but advises that minority status and economic realities may impede the shift.

The relationship of Black value-orientations to racial identity attitudes.

The authors investigated content and structure of cultural values for Black Americans. Differences in sex, racial identity, and an Afro-Euro-American mixture of cultural values were found.

Research in Counseling Psychology: Prospects and Recommendations

This report presents a summary of the conclusions and recommendations of the Research Group at the Third National Conference for Counseling Psychology. The report is organized into five topics, as were discussed during the conference. These topics are (a) definition and image, (b) methodological diversity in counseling research, (c) multi- and cross-cultural issues, (d) the connection of research to practice, and (e) research training. Fifteen general recommendations are offered to the specialty regarding research in counseling psychology.

Racism and Ethnoviolence as Trauma: Enhancing Professional Training

In trauma theory, research, and practice, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a syndrome of psychobiological reactions to events perceived as cataclysmic or life threatening, often has been the focus of mental health interventions and research. Yet virtually missing from contemporary trauma literature is consideration of racism and ethnoviolence as catalysts for PTSD and related symptoms.The stress inducing effects of obviously life threatening racist or ethnoviolent events may be readily apparent to service providers and researchers although they have not been treated or investigated. However, observers seem not to view other types of racism and ethnoviolence as life-threatening (e.g., vicarious experiences, exposure to microaggressions) because the historical roots of the trauma are invisible. Such events may arouse immediate or delayed PTSD and related symptoms in the experiencing person if the experienced event(s) serves as a catalyst for recalling previous personal memories or identity-group histories of extreme threat. Current PTSD assessment schedules are critiqued for their inappropriateness for assessing stress reactions to racism and ethnoviolence specifically; quantitative scales are criticized because of developers’ thoughtless application of traditional psychometric principles of scale development, such as maximizing the magnitude of internal consistency reliability coefficients. We recommend that researchers and practitioners conduct culturally responsive and racially informed assessment and interventions with African Americans, Latina/Latino Americans, Asian/Pacific Islander Americans, Native Americans, and related immigrant groups when they present with symptoms of trauma, particularly when their trauma responses are atypical or the precipitating stressor is ambiguous.

Fairness is not validity or cultural bias in racial-group assessment : A quantitative perspective

When test scores that differ by racial groups are used for assessment purposes, resulting decisions regarding members of the lower scoring group are potentially unfair. Fairness is defined as the removal from test scores of systematic variance attributable to experiences of racial or cultural socialization, and it is differentiated from test-score validity and cultural bias. Two fairness models for identifying, quantifying, and removing from test scores construct-irrelevant variance attributable to racial or cultural psychological attributes are presented. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

How Multiculturalism Obscures Racial Factors in the Therapy Process: Comment on Ridley et al. (1994), Sodowsky et al. (1994), Ottavi et al. (1994), and Thompson et al. (1994).

This article argues that counseling psychologists have prematurely abandoned the study of racial factors in the psychotherapy process in favor of an all-inclusive version of multiculturalism.

Racism and Ethnoviolence as Trauma Enhancing Professional and Research Training

In trauma theory, research, and practice, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a syndrome of psychobiological reactions to events perceived as cataclysmic or life threatening, often has been the ...

Warts and All Personal Reflections on Social Justice in Counseling Psychology. Reply to Kiselica, Palmer, Thompson and Shermis, and Watts

In their comments regarding Goodman, Liang, Helms, Latta, Sparks, and Weintraub’s article “Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents: Feminist and Multicultural Principles in Action,” Kiselica, Palmer, Thompson and Shermis, and Watts offered a number of useful suggestions for elaborating on social justice theory, practice, and training. Their reactions and feedback challenged Goodmanet al. to revisit and clarify their thinking about several related issues, including(a)the importance of student and faculty self-examination,(b)the need to ground our social justice theories and practice in organizing philosophies, (c) the difficulties of educating students about social justice work, and (e) the imperative to collaborate across professions. In this reply, the authors discuss each of these issues in turn, noting points of agreement and disagreement with their colleagues.