Varunee Faii Sangganjanavanich

Workplace Aggression: Toward Social Justice and Advocacy in Counseling for Transgender Individuals

Transgender individuals face various degrees of aggression, hostility, and discrimination in the workplace, including social isolations, physical threats, demotions, and terminations of employment. Professional counselors can serve as social change agents by developing specific sets of knowledge, attitudes, and skills to help this population. This article describes various forms of explicit and implicit workplace discrimination against transgender individuals. The roles of counselors in social justice and advocacy, adapted from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health Standards of Care and the Competencies for Counseling with Transgender Clients, are presented and discussed.

Filial Therapy With Monolingual Spanish-Speaking Mothers: A Phenomenological Study

This article describes a phenomenological study of filial therapy with monolingual, Spanish-speaking mothers living in the United States. Four mothers participated in a 5-week training in filial therapy. Data from the interviews revealed four emergent themes. These include (a) challenges in integrating play therapy skills in everyday life, (b) empowerment from group support, (c) changes in the mother—child relationship, and (d) impact on the child’s behavior. Multicultural considerations and implications for future research are provided.

Perceptions of the Wellness Model of Supervision among Counseling Interns

We implemented a qualitative case study research design to evaluate the perceptions of four internship students participating in a model of supervision that integrates wellness while completing a counseling internship at a community-based trauma clinic. Participant interviews and supervisor reflections revealed seven themes within three categories of inquiry. Participants reported experiences related to Initial Reactions, Engagement, Understanding, Benefits to Self, Translation to Professional Practice, Translation to Professional Relationships, and Commitment to Wellness. Recommendations for supervisors and future research are identified.

A Recipe for Change: Promoting Connection Through Relational-Cultural Theory

This column is designed to underscore relationally-based creative interventions used by counselors and psychotherapists in their practices. Our intention is to provide examples of novel, innovative ways of working with clients in their efforts to deepen self-awareness and their connections with others. Although the interventions within this column will be presented in a linear “how to” manner, an essentional premise of this column is that interventions submitted for publication have a contextual and relational basis. Basic to this column is the therapeutic focus of working through latent hurts and impediments to our clients’ health and happiness. Client goals generally involve creating the requisite emotional space needed for genuine relational choice for connection to manifest. If you have created a useful therapy tool, or if you have adapted an existing creative tool that you would like to share with readers, please follow submission guidelines in the author information packet available at http://www.creativecounselor.org/Journal.html. In this article, the authors outline the key concepts and structure of a creative intervention based on relational-cultural theory (RCT). This intervention, creating a recipe for change, offers counselors a way to promote connection with clients in the therapeutic context and empower them to work through chronic disconnection and condemned isolation in their relations with others. The authors provide a case illustration to highlight the 5 phases of the intervention and its application to RCT.

American Indian Perceptions of Educational Achievement in Predominantly White Culture Implications for Marriage, Couple, and Family Counselors

Phenomenological methodology provided a framework for examining perceptions of achievement among 12 tribal-based American Indians who have family members attending predominately White postsecondary institutions. Data sources included 12 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with plains tribe American Indians. Ten primary themes form an emergent phenomenon of American Indian perceptions of educational achievement in predominately White culture. The emergent phenomenon is centered on in-depth understanding of how tribal-based American Indians experience their family members’ achievements in nontribal settings, how they perceive their family members’ acculturation experiences, and the consequences related to the interaction of tribal and predominately White cultures.

Promoting Counselor Professional and Personal Well-Being Through Advocacy

Professional counselors are vulnerable to impairment due to the nature of helping professions. Impairment can potentially jeopardize counselors’ professional and personal well-being. Thus, it is vital that professional counselors attend to their wellness and advocate for their well-being. The authors provide practical advocacy strategies that professional counselors can utilize at micro, meso, and macro levels to advocate for their well-being, with the hope to promote quality, ethical, and professional practice among professional counselors.