Professional Counselors have a range of beliefs regarding the role of DSM diagnosis in counseling practice. At one end of the spectrum are those who readily engage in DSM diagnosis because they...

Professional Counselors have a range of beliefs regarding the role of DSM diagnosis in counseling practice. At one end of the spectrum are those who readily engage in DSM diagnosis because they believe that doing so enhances counseling’s professional status and improves client outcomes, as well as facilitates clients’ access to care. On the other end are those who refrain from the use of DSM diagnoses (unless a serious mental illness is clearly present, in which case they refer the client out) and use other models of conceptualizing care because they think that the medical model is antithetical to counseling’s values and guiding paradigms. These counselors often avoid seeking insurance reimbursement. In the middle of the spectrum are those who provide diagnoses with different degrees of comfort and try to make DSM diagnoses work with their own counseling models.

1. Where on the spectrum do you think you lie? Why?

2. How do you think your beliefs will influence your future counseling practice?