The Role of Mental Health Counselors in Times of Collective Crisis – October 31

Logistics & Scheduling

Preferred date or timeframe: 10/31/25
Proposed length: 5 hours
Requested fee:

Curriculum & Content Plan

Presenters indicated that curriculum does not qualify as either law & ethics, supervision, or cultural/bias content.

Online class experiential components: slides (PowerPoint, Google Slides), chat, poll or survey

Learner experience level: Novice/Beginning Learners: No advance knowledge required

NBCC Content Area: Counseling Theory/Practice and the Counseling Relationship, Social and Cultural Foundations, Counselor Professional Identity and Practice Issues

Program Description:

We are in a time of tremendous systemic change. As individuals, and as clinicians, we may be feeling powerless. We may rightly be feeling overwhelmed. There are multiple concurrent crises occurring around and in front of us: Economic. Climate. Militaristic. Violent. Many systems that we thought we could rely upon are changing. It may even feel like the world is destabilizing.

How do we respond to these simultaneous crises as people?

How do we respond as mental health clinicians?

What do we say to our clients?

What is the appropriate reaction? What interventions are available? What is our ethical and moral responsibility in this time?

How do we hold the complexity?

This training cannot promise answers. What you’ll get are frameworks, ideas, and suggestions for interventions and approaches for clinical work using systems perspectives and ethical imperatives to help you make sense of this and find ways to respond to the crises we are in. You will hopefully come away feeling supported, and you will likely experience being challenged. You will gain insight into yourself as a counselor, be invited to examine how you are showing up, and potentially experience an expansion of your capacity to be a change agent in whatever way that is meaningful for you.

As James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

NOTES FOR ATTENDEES:

• The CE-eligible presentation runs for 3.5 hours, which includes 3 hours of training plus time for a break. You will need to be logged onto the zoom meeting for the entire 3.5 hours to earn the CEs. There will also be an optional (non-CE eligible) 1+ hour discussion and community-building session available immediately after, to end at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern.
• Some knowledge of social justice counseling concepts and liberatory psychology helpful but not required.
• This training will not be recorded. The slides will not be distributed. Other handouts including journal articles will be provided.
• We invite participants to be camera-on during this training.
• We specifically request that each participant join from a private space where you can focus on the experience. Please do not join this zoom training from a car or airport or coffee shop. We offer flexible cancel policies in case your availability changes after you register.

Image in flyer by Joshua Santos: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crowd-on-street-4581218/

Educational Goals:

So what is this training?

It is a self-of-the-counselor training, where we will engage with the events we are all experiencing together, and investigate how those events are impacting us personally and professionally, and the countertransferential responses we may be experiencing in the treatment room.

It is a training on ethics with some historical context from the development of the counseling profession over time, to increase understanding of how counseling as a whole positions itself in society and our part in that.

It is a trauma-informed training to recognize the harms being done and to work together in community to find ways to respond, in recognition of the realities of how our world is changing.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify countertransference reactions in response to sociopolitical crises, social threat, and “cancel culture.”
• Describe at least 2 examples of how complicity and collusion may operate and have operated in the mental health professions
• Describe defense mechanisms and cognitive distortions that may occur for the clinician and the client in response to systemic stress
• Describe and self-assess aspects of perceived and actual risk to the clinician within the micro, mezzo, and macro contexts
• Describe and implement at least 2 clinical interventions to support clients in navigating sociopolitical instability and an uncertain future

Equity Focus:

This training is built on recognition of oppressions and active harm being done in society based on client target identities.

References:

Althaus, C. (2013). Calculating Political Risk. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315870595

American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA Code of Ethics. https://www.counseling.org/resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf

Danquah, R., Lopez, C., Wade, L., & Castillo, L. G. (2021). Racial justice activist burnout of women of color in the United States: Practical tools for counselor intervention. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 43(4), 519–533. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-021-09449-7

Dollarhide, C. T., Clevenger, A., Dogan, S., & Edwards, K. (2016). Social justice identity: A phenomenological study. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 56(6), 624–645. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167816653639

Fernbach, R. (1973). Authoritarianism: A selection variable for psychotherapy. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 20(1), 69–72. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034029

McClure, B. A., & Russo, T. R. (1996). The politics of counseling: Looking back and forward. Counseling and Values, 40(3), 162–174. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-007X.1996.tb00849.x

Counselors for Social Justice. (2020). The Counselors for Social Justice (CSJ) Code of Ethics. Counselors for Social Justice. https://www.counseling-csj.org/uploads/1/2/3/6/123630265/2020_csj_revised_code_of_ethics_revision7_final.pdf

Toporek, R. L., & Daniels, J. (2018). American Counseling Association advocacy competencies (Version 2nd ed.). American Counseling Association.

Presenters

Presenter Name: Lisa Wenninger, PhD, MBA, LPCC, LPC, LMHC, NCC, BC-TMH

Pronouns: she/her
Email: lisa@myriadsites.com
For this training, this presenter’s background and expertise qualifies them for this NBCC Presenter Category: Category 1: Graduate degree in mental health field, and qualified by education, training, or authorship for this specific subject
Presenter CV/Resume : https://resonantequity.org/wp-content/uploads/formidable/3/WenningerLisa-CV-Nov2024-2-2.pdf

Education:

• Doctorate: CES Antioch University 2024

Relevant experience/training related to topic :

Doctorate degree in Counselor Education and Supervision. Five years as an active participant in California BBS Board and Committee meetings on regulations. Active in Counselors for Social Justice. Doctorate studies on oppression.

Professional licenses (including state), and/or specific certifications that are related to this topic.:

CA LPCC #14315
VA LPC #0701015452
WA LMHC #61478356

Presenter Bio (to be included on promotional materials):

Dr. Lisa Wenninger (she/her) has a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from Antioch University Seattle, a social justice focused program. She is a National Certified Counselor and is licensed in California and Washington, with a telehealth-only social justice counseling practice working with individuals with marginalized identities who are navigating a complex and difficult world. Dr. Wenninger serves on the Board of Counselors for Social Justice to promote advocacy and allyship within the counseling profession and help nurture development of the professional identity of counselor-advocate in colleagues. Dr. Wenninger makes a point to attend the meetings of the California Board of Behavioral Sciences and in other ways stay on top of laws and regulations affecting counselors and our clients. She regularly provides continuing education courses on topics such as law and ethics of telehealth, culturally informed diagnosing, and antiracism in counseling, and consults with organizations interested in building more inclusive and welcoming cultures.

Does presenter have special needs or require any accommodations?: none
Permission to Record I do not give permission to record my presentation.

---

Respect for Intellectual Property – All presenters attested that: The content to be presented does not infringe upon or violate intellectual property or privacy rights of any other party, including copyright, trademark, and license rights, The presenters attest that they either own the materials to be presented, and/or are permitted by law to use the materials in the proposed program.