Rehabilitation Counseling Explained – Part One

Looking for a mental health professional can seem overwhelming. You may have a picture and a brief bio, but often a name, followed by a bunch of mysterious letters, represents most of the available information. Understanding the letters behind a counselor’s name, acronyms denoting certifications and licensure type, can provide helpful information if you know how to decipher them. CRC is one such acronym; it stands for Certified Rehabilitation Counselor. To determine if that qualification is important to you, it’s helpful to know a bit more about what the CRC designation means.

A rehabilitation counselor is trained in client-centered approaches to prepare individuals with disabilities to obtain optimal functioning in all aspects of life. Counselors receive additional training enabling them to consider the medical, psychosocial, spiritual, family, and environmental impact of disability on the individual’s ability to function in their environment. In addition to a Masters degree in Counseling, becoming a CRC requires advanced, specialized graduate-level training and examination from an accredited university and approval from the Commission of Rehabilitation Counselor Certification (which, naturally has its own acronym: CRCC).

Rehabilitation counseling is a portion of the mental health field that holistically applies counseling skills to assist individuals with psychiatric, developmental, cognitive, emotional, and physical disabilities.

Rehabilitation counselors work to help individuals achieve their maximum independence, involving integration and participation in the community, and the world of work in accordance with each individual’s personal goals. Rehabilitation counseling strives to address perceptual and environmental barriers through the use of counseling, advocacy, and support, while cultivating autonomy, and increasing overall quality of life.

 

Written by: Emily Ruggles