Human Sexuality: Educating Future Counselors
Conference Strand
Teaching, Training, and Supervision
Abstract
This program will focus on human sexuality as it relates to the counseling relationship. Topics covered will include lack of CACREP standards, ethical implications, multicultural considerations, and how privilege informs different aspects of sexuality. Best practices for incorporating human sexuality into counseling courses will be identified. Possibilities for implementation and the value of human sexuality courses will be discussed.
Evidence
American Counseling Association (2014). ACA Code of Ethics. Alexandria, VA: Author.
Anderson, W. (1986). Stages of therapist comfort with sexual concerns of clients. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 17(4), 352-356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.17.4.352
Counsel for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP] (2016). 2016 standards for accreditation. Alexandria, VA: Author.
Diambra, J. F., Pollard, B. L., Gamble, R. M., & Banks, B. P. (2016). Teaching a human sexuality course: What are counseling students thinking? American Journal of Sexuality Education, 11(1), 76-91. doi: 10.1080/15546128.2016.1141737
Dupkoski, W. (20120. Sexuality is universal: Implications for using a constructivist approach to sexuality training in counselor education programs. In Ideas and research you can use: Vistas 2012. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/knowledge-center/vistas.
Humphrey, K. M. (2000). Sexuality counseling in counselor preparation programs. The Family Journal, 8(3), 305-308. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1066480700083018
Ratts, M. J., Singh, A. A., Nassar-McMillan, S., Butler, S. K., & McCullough, J. R. (2015). Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies. Retrieved from http://www.multiculturalcounseling.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=205:amcd-endorses-multicultural-and-social-justice-counseling-competencies&catid=1:latest&Itemid=123
Format
Individual Presentations
Biographical Sketch
The first presenter is currently a Licensed Professional Counselor with a Mental Health Service Provider designation, a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, and a NCC with CCMHC designation. The presenter has worked in the counseling field for 8 years and has presented multiple times on issues around human sexuality. The presenter is also familiar with CACREP standards due to past educational experiences and current setting. Also, the presenter has taken courses which have discussed human sexuality as well as a course solely focused on human sexuality and how this can be addressed in the counseling setting.
The second presenter is a Licensed Professional Counselor with Mental Health Service Provider and Approved Clinical Supervisor credentials. He is also an NCC. He worked as a counselor since 1989 and been an LPC since 1994. He has worked as a counselor educator for 18 years, constructed a graduate level course, human sexuality in the counseling profession, course, and has taught it four consecutive years. He recently published an article related to data collected in his course.
Start Date
2-9-2018 2:30 PM
End Date
2-9-2018 3:45 PM
Recommended Citation
Hinds, Amanda M. and Diambra, Joel, "Human Sexuality: Educating Future Counselors" (2018). National Cross-Cultural Counseling and Education Conference for Research, Action, and Change. 17.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ccec/2018/2018/17
Human Sexuality: Educating Future Counselors
This program will focus on human sexuality as it relates to the counseling relationship. Topics covered will include lack of CACREP standards, ethical implications, multicultural considerations, and how privilege informs different aspects of sexuality. Best practices for incorporating human sexuality into counseling courses will be identified. Possibilities for implementation and the value of human sexuality courses will be discussed.
Description
Human sexuality is an integral part of life, and counselors should expect to work with clients experiencing issues related to human sexuality. However, the CACREP 2016 Standards do not specifically note human sexuality in the eight core areas and when it is mentioned, it is specifically for Marriage, Couple, and Family Counseling specialty entry (CACREP, 2016). Additionally, Florida is the only state that requires a graduate level human sexuality course for professional licensure as a counselor (Diambra, Pollard, Gamble, & Banks, 2016). While attending to matters of sexual orientation in multicultural or human development classes is certainly important, counselors can benefit from more training and education on human sexuality and components of human sexuality in addition to sexual orientation. Counselor educators will also benefit from further education on not only human sexuality, but on best practices to incorporate human sexuality into their courses to prepare their students entering the field (Anderson, 1986; Diambra, Pollard, Gamble, & Banks, 2016; Humphrey, 2000). In addition, the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC) “offers counselors a framework to implement multicultural and social justice competencies into counseling theories, practices, and research” (Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015, p. 3). Human sexuality is considered a universal human experience (Dupkoski, 2012) but recent events in American society have shown that not all matters of human sexuality have always been considered equal nor all people with non-conforming sexualities protected. Counselor educators are also called by the ACA Code of Ethics (2014) section F.7.c to infuse multicultural and diversity issues into all courses. This suggests that upon recognizing there is a deficit in education on human sexuality, counselor educators have the ethical obligation to address human sexuality (Diambra et al, 2016; Dupkoski, 2012).