Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Counseling & Human Services

Committee Director

Jeffry Moe

Committee Member

Judith Wambui Preston

Committee Member

Steve Myran

Abstract

Leadership and advocacy are essential for all counselors (Lewis, 2022; McKibben, 2016; Paradise et al., 2010; Sweeney, 2022). However, within research and professional counseling associations, there appears to be a bias in which counselor educators are the expected, default leaders within the counseling profession (Burns, 2015; Kleist, 2018; Speciale & Goodrich, 2020). While counselor educators may have experience as counselors, they primarily work in academia, so their experiences do not authentically represent the needs of professional counselors. Counseling leaders need to represent and understand the people they serve: counselors. Therefore, this study sought to understand the lived experiences of master’s level counselors in professional counseling association leadership through a phenomenological approach. Eleven participants completed semi-structured interviews. Results from this study indicated eight main themes: professional counselor leadership identity, prior experience, motivations, responsibilities, challenges, benefits, support, and advice. Results from this study can provide insight into developing master’s level leadership training, increasing accessibility of leadership in professional counseling associations, and bridging the gap between counselor educators and counseling practitioners in counseling leadership.

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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). 

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25777/7tzm-m551

ISBN

9798197809018

ORCID

0009-0008-5512-4322

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