n9el 7 UaPE4lAal tXKsLnrPiotyIdiuNnc bLalhGelEloi s AlPAhosSCignsyYHgoC cLiHatdtOioLnO foGrY A IpNp lTieHdE P UsyNcIhToEloDg Sy,T 2A0T0E7S Internationalising Counseling Psychology in the United States: A SWOT Analysis

Dans le respect des exigences de cette édition spéciale, cet article présente une analyse SWOT du domaine de la psychologie du counseling aux Etats-Unis. Après un bref survol historique, on passe à la description du contexte des tentatives récentes d’internationalisation de la psychologie du counseling aux Etats-Unis au sein du mouvement multiculturaliste. Le premier plaidoyer en faveur du multiculturalisme initié par la division de psychologie du counseling de l’American Psychological Association est certainement l’un de ses points forts. L’ajout du multiculturalisme international au multiculturalisme local semble être une évolution naturelle pour le domaine et ouvre un ensemble de nouvelles perspectives. On peut citer, comme voie prometteuse, notre préoccupation récente pour la justice sociale, autre champ majeur d’investigation et d’intervention. Cependant, le domaine de la psychologie du counseling reste menacé comme le montre notre statut de «rejeton» de la psychologie clinique. On fait remarquer par la même occasion qu’une part de nos faiblesses est due à notre incapacité d’exploiter certaines de nos activités de première importance telles que la réinsertion, la prévention ou la psychologie positive. Des soucis plus récents ont porté sur le déclin organisationnel avec la fermeture d’un nombre important de formations de premier plan en psychologie du counseling. Les raisons de ces disparitions sont toujours sujettes à débat. Consistent with the framework recommended for this special issue, the current article provides a SWOT analysis of the field of counseling psychology within the United States. Beginning with a brief overview of the history of the field, the current analysis moves on to contextualise the recent attempts to internationalise counseling psychology in the United States within the multiculturalism movement. The early advocacy of multiculturalism undertaken by the Division of Counseling Psychology within the American Psychological Association is certainly one of its strengths. The movement to add international multiculturalism to domestic multiculturalism appears to be a natural transition for thefield and provides a new set of opportunities. Other opportunities for the field include our recent attention to social justice as another core area of inquiry and intervention. Yet, the field of counseling psychology continues to experience threats as it relates to our “step-child” status vis-a-vis clinical psychology. At the same time, it was noted that part of the weakness of our field has been our failure to capitalise on some of our areas of emphasis such as rehabilitation, prevention, and positive psychology. More recent concerns have centered around organisational decline with the closure of a significant number of the leading counseling psychology training programs in the country. The meaning of these closures continues to be debated. Counseling psychology (CPY) is emerging as a global field, though presently there are only a handful of countries with counseling psychology specialties. Other countries include counseling psychology but may not have it as a formalised, legalised sub-area within applied psychology. For example, Leung (2003) discussed counseling psychology as a profession in Hong Kong though no specialty area is currently designated. A number of authors (e.g. Barak & Golan, 2000; Leach, Akhurst, & Basson, 2003; Leung, Guo, & Lam, 2000) have recently written about counseling psychology in a variety of countries, and the purpose of this article is to examine the future of internationalising counseling psychology from a United States perspective.