Promoting Overall Health and Wellness Among Clients: The Relevance and Role of Professional Counselors
✍ Scribed by Holly Fetter; Dennis W. Koch
- Publisher
- American Counseling Association
- Year
- 2009
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 181 KB
- Volume
- 8
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1524-6817
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Given the rise in health care costs and the premature morbidity and mortality rates in the United States, the authors discuss the relevant constructs of wellness and holistic health as they relate and apply to the profession of counseling. Implications and application of the Indivisible Self model of wellness (J. E. Myers & T. J. Sweeney, 2004) in counseling are highlighted.
A movement in the profession of counseling incorporates a wellness philosophy and wellness-oriented approach within the counseling change process. The construct of wellness pertains to an orientation of lifestyle in which body, mind, and spirit are fully integrated in efforts to achieve an optimal state of health and well-being (Myers, Sweeney, & Witmer, 2000). Wellness, according to Myers et al. (2000), involves the physical, social, psychological, emotional, intellectual, and environmental dimensions of life. According to Ardell and Langdon (1989), quality of life is an important aspect of wellness. Hence, the term wellness involves the intentional act of embracing health-enhancing values, motives, and behaviors in efforts to promote good health. Simply put, wellness involves an individual's ability to achieve and maintain healthy living.
Definitions of wellness and health diverge depending on the professional specialty (e.g., psychology, counseling, education, medicine; Compton, Smith, Cornish, & Qualls, 1996). To illustrate contemporary thinking about health and wellness, Arnold and Breen (1998) conceptualized health as an empowerment among communities, groups, and individuals as they strive to improve and advance their particular health aims. In this context, health care professionals equip individuals and groups to better function in and contribute to their communities and society as a whole. This concept is congruent with the