ABSTRACT
The traditional role of the school counselor involved providing reactive services to a relatively small percentage of the student population. In contrast, recommendations about the role for the contemporary school counselor include a variety of new or additional functions— advocacy, collaboration and teaming, and leadership. Although the “newer counseling functions” are clearly important to the role of the contemporary school counselor, an emphasis on functions is not without limitations. Strengths-oriented school counselors attack problems primarily by attempting to build assets and protective factors. The strengths-based school counselor employs empirically supported or evidence-based counseling interventions whenever possible and attempts to document the effectiveness of those interventions. A variety of cognitive-behavioral interventions familiar to school counselors, including cognitive restructuring of automatic or irrational thoughts; scheduling of mastery, pleasure, and graded task activities; assertiveness training; and problem solving are employed in eight counseling sessions.
