The 2008 Leona Tyler Award Address Core Values That Distinguish Counseling Psychology: Personal and Professional Perspectives

The empirical literature and the author's professional experience over four decades have convinced him that concerning practice patterns and work settings there is little to distinguish counseling psychology from other psychological practice specialties. What is distinctive are certain core values that undergird and distinguish this specialty. First, a definition of "values" is presented, followed by a brief review of a limited number of studies that address the topic of values and counseling psychology. Next, the author describes a qualitative study of the perceptions and beliefs of 18 experienced counseling psychology educators and trainers about core values that distinguish the specialty and set it apart from other psychology specialty practice areas. The final section presents nine proposed core values, most of which are distinctive to counseling psychology, derived logically from the themes of the literature and the interviews with the counseling psychology educators as filtered through the author's biases and assumptions.