“I have seen the power and promise of working in a field that promotes psychological health and well-being—a cornerstone of a healthy society.” Dean Don Pope-Davis
When Don Pope-Davis was growing up, his grandmother lived a short walk down the street from his home. If ever something bothered him or someone in his large family got under his skin, he would sprint to the elder woman’s home.
There, she offered straightforward advice, and mostly listened, as grandmothers so benevolently do.
Those encounters inevitably shaped Pope-Davis. He would go on to earn a PhD in counseling psychology from Stanford University, and study religious attitudes, multicultural competence and unintentional racism in counseling. As dean of Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology since 2018, he realizes those moments of counsel and refuge have become fleeting — even rare — for many people.
“The community helped validate my presence and existence, and when I felt issues were emerging, there were the elders around to correct my perception,” Pope-Davis said.
But in these days of rural flight and career nomadism, family connections span great distances, and relationships can be more superficial.
“So, we create these third-tier relationships that are positional to some extent, and not in the traditional way,” he said.
Layer on the social-isolation mentality that the COVID pandemic fostered, and that technology can exacerbate, and mental well-being takes a hit.
“The number one thing that people want is to be seen, to be validated in some way,” Pope-Davis said.
In 2022, half of young adults “always” or “often” felt anxious the previous year, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. Half of those said they could not access mental health services. That same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that more than 4 in 10 teens reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless.” Mental health concerns persist for many older Americans post-pandemic.
At the same time, the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis estimated that by 2036, the nation will need nearly 60,000 additional behavioral health workers. Experts predict a shortage of 11,000 of those workers.
“I look at the challenges that are faced by students and school systems and adults in our society,” Pope-Davis said. “We see the level of anxiety and distress that has emerged. I think counseling psychology brings a perspective to that conversation to help begin to address those issues through research and scholarship, and in terms of practice.”
In response, the college is working to revive counseling psychology at Ohio State, a specialization that has its roots in the college more than 100 years ago. And Dean Pope-Davis has personally launched a scholarship endowment to provide students with financial support. The Pope-Davis Endowed Fund will provide one or more scholarships to future students enrolled in the college’s Counseling Psychology program.
Psychology at Ohio State began in College of Education
Psychology was a small undergraduate instructional program within Ohio State’s College of Education until George F. Arps was appointed program chair in 1913. Arps — for whom the college’s building on High Street in Columbus is named — had studied under Wilhelm Wundt, among the founders of modern psychology known for establishing the world’s first psychology research lab in Leipzig, Germany.
At Ohio State, Arps elevated psychology, helping to establish a graduate program and enhancing the field as a respected discipline within the university. He later became dean of the College of Education.
The program’s early focus was helping struggling college students achieve academic success through proven learning methods. (This work continues in the college’s Dennis Learning Center.) It later expanded to address the mental health needs of students and, eventually, others. In 1952, Ohio State’s Counseling Psychology was among the first three degree programs at universities to be accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA).
When W. Bruce Walsh came to the program in 1965, he was fresh out of a PhD program at University of Iowa, “a young whippersnapper,” he said. He landed in the College of Education on the fourth floor of Arps Hall, working among psychologists who shaped both clinical and counseling psychology.
“We had a good program that prepared our students in theory, research and practice,” Walsh said. “And they went out and did good things. … Bruce Fretz went to University of Maryland, Roger Myers went to Columbia, and, of course, Rosie Bingham.”
Rosie Phillips Davis (formerly Bingham), ’78 PhD, became an expert in student counseling and Black student affairs, vice president for student affairs at University of Memphis and president of the American Psychological Association in 2019. As president, she launched an initiative to change perceptions of deep poverty and the structures that cause it.
“What was great about Ohio State’s program? Outstanding people who trained us well in practice and research,” Phillips Davis said. “My base at Ohio State made it possible for me to put tiers on — to layer on top of what I had (learned). I had great teachers.”
Seven Ohio State faculty and eight graduates of counseling psychology became presidents of APA or its Division 17 over the years. Many faculty, including Walsh, were editors of journals in the field.
“Ohio State has produced some of the most illustrious people in counseling psychology, huge leadership roles in APA,” said Professor Beverly Vandiver, director of the new specialization. “There are some still living in this area to this day. They had a huge impact on the field.”
“You’d go to conferences, and people would say, ‘Are you a graduate of one of the MOMs programs?’” Pope-Davis said. “Minnesota, Ohio State and Maryland. They were the top programs in the country.”
The psychology department, including counseling psychology, moved out of the College of Education in 1968 to the Ohio State’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Though the program produced much success, counseling psychology shut down by late 2006, as the department took on a greater clinical research focus.
Why bring back counseling psychology now?
“That history and legacy shouldn’t be buried,” Vandiver said. “Because really well-known psychologists came out of Ohio State and came out of the training of that program.”
For the good of the community, the college is uniquely positioned to make counseling psychology flourish again at Ohio State.
How is counseling psychology different?
The college has continued to provide high quality programs related to the psychological and counseling sciences.
The APA-accredited School Psychology program trains scientist practitioners to serve children in school and community settings. Acclaimed scholars in the Educational Psychology program research student motivation, self-regulation and reasoning skills. The top-ranked Counselor Education program trains professional school counselors as well as mental health counselors and is accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. The Couple and Family Therapy program trains clinicians to counsel couples and families; it supports the college’s Couple and Family Therapy Clinic.
Those programs continue to be a major thrust of the college’s work.
Counseling psychology overlaps with those college programs and also with clinical psychology. But it has long been considered an “applied” discipline: It focuses less on severe mental health issues that clinical psychologists might address and more on helping people find coping mechanisms for common developmental and personal issues, such as anxiety and depression.
“Counseling psychology has a long history of focusing on individual differences," including age, disability, race, sex and cultural difference, said Steven Stone-Sabali, an assistant professor who will work in the new program. As early as the late 1940s, for example, counseling psychology tailored specific interventions for war veterans at Ohio State.
“That's where we start. … In order to provide high-quality services to those populations," he said, "you have to have trained clinicians who understand how these individual differences can impact somebody and who aren't afraid to lean into those and really work with culturally relevant values and philosophies to help people heal.”
In that way, counseling psychology was a forerunner within the field, Vandiver said. “It's only probably in the last 20 years that clinical psychology has embraced more diversity.”
“We have focused on not only individual differences, but those differences from a wellness model,” Vandiver said. “Our focus is on positive mental health. How do we help people?"
"Counseling psychology is both preventative and strengths-based," said Bo Hyun Lee, an assistant professor in the new program.
“Everyone has their own solution inside somewhere,” Lee said. “So, we really try to be there next to them and assist them to be able to find where that (solution) is and who they are, maximizing their strengths.”
“We are a field that combined psychology, education, vocation,” Vandiver said. “And as psychologists, we are trained to do assessments, just like clinical psychologists. So, we may have some overlap, but it's coming from an entirely different origin.”
An opportunity to meet today’s challenges
Just as counseling psychology adapted to meet needs of war veterans and again to respond to dramatic shifts toward mental wellness in the 1970s, it can reposition itself to address current needs.
“We really have the opportunity, since this is a new program, to tailor it in a way that's relevant for this contemporary time,” Stone-Sabali said. “So, (we can) have students study all the interventions for mental health but also work toward culturally adapting those interventions to better serve a wide range of people.”
“Research has shown that culturally tailored interventions are more effective than basic cognitive behavioral therapy that is one-size-fits-all and applied to everybody,” he said.
Much of the counseling that became virtual during the pandemic has remained so: As many as 64% of psychologists conduct sessions exclusively online, according to the APA. Also, artificial intelligence “therapy” and influencers on social media have complicated the guidance that people receive.
“We need to train experts to help people sift through the content that (people are) engaging in and help deliver high- quality services to them,” Stone-Sabali said. “That's why we are on a cutting edge, where we can really design an updated model of our training philosophy.”
The need for care is evident in the statistics. “The clinicians cannot meet the demand,” Lee said. “Specifically, within Ohio, between 2013 and 2019 there was a 353% (increase in) demand.”
But the need is also demonstrated in interactions that faculty have with communities. At a recent gathering of several Ohio Black churches, Vandiver turned her brief talk about Black youth suicide back to the audience for questions. Their response shocked even her.
“People were crying. Children were crying,” she said. “And they were also talking about the impact of social media on their lives. We asked if people were willing to close their eyes — we didn't want to disclose anybody — and raise their hand. How many had ever had these thoughts of suicide?"
In an audience of 200, more than half raised their hands.
“People are no longer standing on the sideline of not wanting to talk about it,” Vandiver said. “This group of students, these parents, these children were feeling a need to talk.”
“There’s a real need in crisis.”
The scholarship endowment
Providing financial assistance will allow more students to pursue degrees and put more counseling psychologists into the field.
“It is important for me as the dean to lead by example. How do we move from trauma to psychological well-being?” Pope-Davis said.
The college must make an impact where it can, educating practitioners, researchers and educators of practitioners, he said.
“We not only need to elevate counseling psychology,” Pope-Davis said, “but we need to continue to invest in the other areas that address the well-being of our students and people in our community.”
Maybe then we can build commonality, fostering a community that listens and validates, helping children to grow into leaders, and leaders to remember who once validated them.
Contribute to the Pope-Davis Endowed Fund, or contact Betsy McCabe for more information.