Reference no: EM132212667

Discussion: School Counseling Versus Mental Health Counseling

Counseling in a school setting is a student-centered process facilitated by a school counselor. In this process, a counselor applies theories and skills to assist students to specify and resolve a myriad of issues that interfere with students' personal, social, and academic growth. Issues could range from simple natural developmental transitions to family violence, acute crisis to chronic psychological disorders, interpersonal difficulties to problem behaviors, and many more. Many of these issues are broad and fall in more than one domain of services, which might be beyond the scope of the role of the professional school counselor.

In your role as a professional school counselor, where do you see the fine line that demarcates your role as a school counselor from that of a mental health counselor? Are you familiar with the scope of practice and limitations of your profession when providing counseling services? How do you determine short-term intervention versus the need for a referral for long-term therapy or additional intervention when assisting a student with emotional or mental health disorders?

For this Discussion, you consider the differences between mental health counseling and school counseling. You think about the settings, expectations, and perspectives of these two professions.

Description of the scope and limitations of your role related to providing individual and group counseling in your school. Justify your response. Clarify the difference(s) between school counseling and mental health counseling. Explain how mental health counseling in the school is beyond the scope of your school counseling.

Be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the resources and the current literature using appropriate APA format and style.