Three Counseling Issues, Article Critique Example

Spirituality as Component in Mental Health Counseling

In “ The Significance of Spirituality for Individuals with Chronic Illness: Implications for Mental Health Counseling”, researchers Lindsey Nichols and Brandon Hunt present a thoughtful and rationally laid out approach to examining the importance of spirituality in treating the chronically ill. While citing extensively from the latest studies on the subject, the article does not offer new evidence from a specific study done by Nichols and Hunt; rather, it weaves the existing findings into a skillful endorsement of the need for mental health counselors to incorporate elements of spirituality in their work.

Among the many assets of the article are the clarity of the writing and the methodical way in which each issue is presented.  For example, after a well-written and academically sound statement of the reasons for the work, the authors go on to define the primary factors within the subject. They offer an understanding and comprehensive view of what “chronic illness” may entail, as they fully acknowledge how individuals respond differently to similar cases of illness. Then, there is a necessary and sensible concept of spirituality offered, one which focuses on the reality that religion and spirituality may often be wholly different things. Finally, the authors give strong evidence to urge mental health counselors to employ spirituality as a treatment strategy, rather than shy away from it for fear of offending patients.

Ultimately, this is a remarkably readable and enlightening article. The citations add necessary validation, but are not overdone.   Most importantly and effectively, Nichols and Hunt make a potent case without betraying an agenda. They have examined the data and they are confident that, as spirituality is a vital element within most people in one form or another, mental health counseling must take advantage of this resource. In actually calling a patient’s spirituality into play, they assert, counselors help patients uncover their own weaponry against illness.

Issues of Willingness to Receive Counseling

“Self-Concealment and Willingness to Seek Counseling for Psychological, Academic, and Career Issues” presents a very interesting study of how reluctance to get help interferes with mental health counseling. Authors David Vogel and Patrick Armstrong make their purpose very clear: existing studies on how an unwillingness to be counseled impacts on those needing it are too limited to provide real insight into this issue, and their article offers their own, more comprehensive research model.

Two hundred and thirty-five college students in the Midwest, representing diverse ethnic and gender backgrounds, were the participants, and they responded to a variety of questions regarding states of trauma and/or distress in their lives, their assessments of their own positive and negative social experiences, and how willing they were to seek counseling help. Most importantly for their strategy, the authors correlated the data with a validated self-concealment measuring tool. In painstaking detail, Vogel and Armstrong recount how every variable, latent and otherwise, was cross-referenced in the data to produce the findings.

This attention to academic integrity, ironically, hurts the research. More precisely, it appears that the ambition of the project is so vast as to thwart its own results. For one thing, and as the authors freely admit, virtually every component of the study is inherently subjective; as the students conveyed experience and states of mind, there could be no truly effective means of gauging how much import each participant attached to each question. The authors are confident that they have substantially added to the existing data, and they have. Unfortunately, it seems that they have as well run directly into the reasons why earlier studies are limited; the subject is simply too broad to attain a definitive idea of how a sampling of people will, for various and interconnected reasons, resist counseling when they may require it.

Abuse, Lesbianism, Addiction, and Repressed Memories

Employing an impressive array of related research, authors Christina Galvin and Angela Brooks-Livingston focus on a very specific issue in their article, “Impact of Remembering Childhood Sexual  Abuse on Addiction Recovery for Young Adult Lesbians”. What is most interesting about their work here, however, is how the necessary background data goes to concerns far beyond those of the population indicated in the title. This actually becomes the article’s major strength and greatest weakness.

Beginning with a documented assessment of how vastly under-reported CSA, or Childhood Sexual Abuse, is with both men and women, the authors go on to tie such histories into substance abuse  as a consequent problem. Here, as elsewhere, the facts represented are by no means restricted to young lesbians; the findings relate to men and women of varying ages and sexual orientations. There is then a clearly written and sensible focus on how early sexual abuse typically impacts on an individual’s developing sexual identity, although the data here is far from conclusive in terms of actual effect. Galvin and Livingston-Brooks  then move onto the more general difficulties experienced by lesbians in coming out, and how ordinary social environments of mistrust, disapproval, and/or outright hostility create in lesbians further inclinations to repress.

Finally, the authors tie together all the elements and go to their main point, which is that, although lesbians with both substance abuse issues and CSA histories constitute a minority population, counselors may develop greater sensibilities and skills in their work through such sensitive and multifaceted issues.

As noted, the article presents strong foundations for linking the components of gay sexuality, substance abuse, and repressed sexual abuse memories, and not only for lesbians. Beyond doing the basic math, however, in noting the inevitable likelihoods of traumatic pasts as prompting substance abuse and/or what is perceived to be a deviant sexuality by many, the authors have nowhere to go. The work is valid, in that it logically emphasizes vital correlations. However, if the real intent is to focus on troubled young lesbians, the focus is not nearly strong enough, and the article then serves more as a prelude to a lengthier and more substantial investigation.

References

Galvin, C. R., & Brooks-Livingston, A. (2011.)  Impact of Remembering Childhood Sexual Abuse on Addiction Recovery for Young Adult Lesbians.  Adultspan Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1. 14-23.

Nichols, L. M., & Hunt, B.  (2011.)  The Significance of Spirituality for Individuals with Chronic Illness: Implications for Mental Health Counseling. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, Vol. 33, No. 1. pp. 51-66.

Vogel, D. L., & Armstrong, L. I. (2010.)  Self-Concealment and Willingness to Seek Counseling for Psychological, Academic, and Career Issues.  Journal of Counseling and Development, Vol. 8, No. 4. pp. 387-396.