Handbook for Social Justice in Counseling Psychology

Counseling psychologists often focus on clients′ inner conflicts and avoid getting involved in the clients′ environment.  This handbook encourages counseling psychologists to become active participants in changing systems that constrain clients′ ability to function. . . .  Besides actual programs, the contributors cover research, training, and ethical issues.  The case examples showing how professionals have implemented social action programs are particularly valuable. . . .  [T]his book provides an outline for action, not only for psychologists, but also for social workers, politicians, and others interested in improving the lot of disadvantaged populations.  Summing up: Recommended.  Graduate students, researchers, professionals. -- W. P. Anderson, emeritus, University of Missouri-Columbia, CHOICE

The Handbook for Social Justice in Counseling Psychology: Leadership, Vision, and Action provides counseling psychology students, educators, researchers, and practitioners with a conceptual road map of social justice and social action that they can integrate into their professional identity, role, and function. It presents historical, theoretical, and ethical foundations followed by exemplary models of social justice and action work performed by counseling psychologists from interdisciplinary collaborations. The examples in this Handbook explore a wide range of settings with diverse issues and reflect a variety of actions.  

The book concludes with a chapter reflecting on future directions for the field of counseling psychology beyond individual and traditional practice to macro-level conceptual models. It also explores policy development and implementation, systemic strategies of structural and human change, cultural empowerment and respect, advocacy, technological innovation, and third and fourth generations of human rights activities.  

Key Features:  

• Integrates research and ethical implications as well as guidelines for developing and evaluating specific types of social justice activities
• Addresses a comprehensive arena of issues examined from historical, theoretical, systemic, and practical perspectives
• Clarifies social justice in counseling psychology to distinguish it from other helping professions
• Provides readers with specific examples and guidelines for integrating social justice into their work supported by a solid theoretical framework and acknowledgement of interdisciplinary influences
• Includes contributions from prominent authors in counseling psychology to provide expert examples from the field

The Handbook for Social Justice in Counseling Psychology is an excellent resource for counseling psychology students, educators, researchers, and practitioners. It will be a welcome addition to any academic library or research institution.

Rebecca L. Toporek, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling, Career and College Counseling Specializations, at San Francisco State University. Her research and writing interests include social justice and multicultural supervision and training, advocacy competencies, attitudes toward race and poverty, systemic interventions in discrimination, and career and college counseling. She was a co-editor of the Handbook of Multicultural Competencies and is a co-editor of an emerging electronic journal of social justice in counseling and psychology. She is a founding member of Counselors for Social Justice of the American Counseling Association. She received her doctorate degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her most important roles include mother, partner, sister, daughter, friend, colleague, teacher, ally, community member, and global citizen. Lawrence H. Gerstein earned a B.B.A. in public administration and a Ph.D. in counseling and social psychology. He is a Ball State University George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Fulbright Scholar, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. Professor Gerstein is a Co-Editor of the Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology and an Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Counseling Psychology. He has published 100+ scholarly articles and three books including the International Handbook of Cross-Cultural Counseling and the Handbook for Social Justice in Counseling Psychology. He is known for his research on cross-cultural methodology, nonviolence, social justice, emotions, and sports for youth development. Professor Gerstein has received 2+ million dollars in funding including four U.S. State Department grants and one U.S. Institute of Peace grant. He has performed conflict prevention and resolution work and/or research with adults, children, and youth in the U.S.A, Jordan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Israel, Taiwan, and Burma. He also has trained Iraqi young leaders in social entrepreneurship.   Nadya A. Fouad, PhD, ABPP, is the Mary and Ted Kellner Endowed Chair of Educational Psychology and a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her Ph.D in Counseling Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1984. Her primary areas of interest are career development and career choices of women and of racial and ethnic minorities; cross-cultural vocational assessment; interest measurement; cross-cultural counseling; race and ethnicity, and competencies in training.  Dr. Fouad is the editor of the Journal of Vocational Behavior.  She is a past editor of the Counseling Psychologist, and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Career Assessment, Journal of Counseling Psychology, and Career Development Quarterly. She currently serves on the National Academy of Engineering’s Workforce Development Workgroup.  Dr. Fouad is past president of The Society of Counseling Psychology (17) of the American Psychological Association, past chair of the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs, past chair of the Board of Educational Affairs of the American Psychological Association, and is past Chair of the APA Ethics Committee.   She is the 2017 recipient of the Leona Tyler Award for Lifetime of Achievement in Counseling Psychology, the 2014 Society of Vocational Psychology Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2013 Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2010 Paul Nelson Award, the 2009 APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education and Training, the 2009 Janet E. Helms Award for Mentoring & Scholarship, and the 2003 APA Division 17 John Holland Award for Outstanding Achievement in Career and Personality Research. Gargi Roysircar received her doctorate in educational psychology with emphasis in counseling psychology at Texas Tech University. She is the Founding Director of the Antioch Multicultural Center for Research and Practice at Antioch University New England and Professor of Clinical Psychology. She conducts research on disaster outreach in international settings, the effects of acculturation and enculturation on immigrant mental health, multicultural competencies in practice and assessment, and training graduate students in culturally informed practice. She has authored over 100 journal articles and chapters on these topics, with her most recent publications in Traumatology, Counselling Psychology Quarterly, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, The Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of Muslim Mental Health, Journal of Career Development, and The Oxford Handbook of Social Class in Counseling. Dr. Roysircar has participated in mental health counseling in earthquake-destroyed Haiti, tsunami-affected fishing communities in Southern India; Hurricanes Katrina and Rita-affected communities and first responders in the United States Gulf Coast; and in Southern African orphanages that serve HIV/AIDS-infected and affected children and women. She has provided psychoeducation in flood-ravaged Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico. Dr. Roysircar trains her counseling teams in disaster trauma, culture-centered skills specific to a community disaster, and in clinician self-care and resilience. She is a grantee of the American Psychological Foundation for her research on her disaster mental health assessment and services. In 2001, Dr. Roysircar was elected as the first Asian President of the Association for Multicultural Counseling  and Development, and was appointed as the first Asian editor of the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development from 2004-2011. Her awards include the 2002 Extended Research Award of the American Counseling Association (ACA) as well as ACA’s 2007 Research Award.  Her co-authored books are “Multicultural Assessment in Counseling and Clinical Psychology,” “Handbook of Social Justice in Counseling Psychology,”\ and the Spanish translation of  “Multicultural Counseling Competencies (2003),”  having previously co-authored this book in English.  Her instrument, the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI), is the most frequently cited instrument among published self-report multicultural competency scales. Her article (Sodowsky et al., 1998), which uses the MCI instrument, was ranked over the past decades among 25 most cited articles of the Journal of Counseling Psychology. Dr. Roysircar is ranked in productivity ratings of authors in 5 multicultural psychology journals. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological (APA) and served on the APA Taskforce for Re-envisioning the Multicultural Guidelines for the 21 Century, adopted by APA in August 2017 and entitled as, Multicultural guidelines: An ecological approach to context, identity, and intersectionality. Dr. Roysircar was the recipient of the 2017 Division 35 Psychology of Women Strickland Daniel Mentoring Award. Dr. Roysircar’s 44-year teaching career has been spent in three countries across three continents. Tania Israel is an Associate Professor in the Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her doctoral degree in counseling psychology from Arizona State University in 1998, and she has a background in women’s studies and sexuality education. Her professional interests include gender issues, feminist psychology, sexuality education and counseling, and diversity training. Her current research focuses on the development and assessment of counselor competence with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clients.