Counselor Wellness and Impairment

Counselor Wellness and Impairment

James Worley

Liberty University

Abstract

This paper will summarize the crucial topic of counselor wellness and impairment. It will showcase the importance of mental and physical health in counselors and how it relates to the success of their interaction with clients in the mental health field. This paper will also encompass the issue of impairment in counselors, often called counselor burnout. It will address the symptoms of burnout and how to remedy the negative effects associated with it.

Wellness is a term that is commonly used, along with impairment in reference to the state of mind of counselors and their ability to successfully practice their profession. Wellness and reduction in impairment are the subject of numerous professional counseling organizations (e.g., American Counseling Association [ACA]; American Mental Health Counselors Association [AMHCA]; National Board for Certified Counselors [NBCC]). Wellness is defined as a positive state of healthy, both mentally and physically, that can be established in all counselors, whether they are impaired or not (Wilmer & Young, 1996). Impairment, on the other hand, is defined as a breakdown in physical, mental, or emotional state of a counselor that may allow harm to come to their clients when interacting with them through their profession, as stated from the ACA Code of Ethics, standard C.2.g. The path to wellness in the counseling profession and the prevention and correction of impairment is a crucial duty of the counselor in society today.

Counselors equate wellness with the overall approach of functioning in humans. One of the more pertinent aspects of wellness is the promotion holism, or attending to the intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, and occupational well-being of oneself (Cunningham & Ohrt, 2012). The addressing of these components can be a very long and overwhelming task for counselors. This being recognized, many organizations...