The Challenges of Rural Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Daniel J. Weigel, Ph.D., LPC, LADC, NCC, CCMHC, MAC, ACS, has spent several years exploring the subtle nuances and overt challenges of rural clinical mental health counseling. In this book Dr. Weigel examines a variety of issues related to rural mental health service delivery. Issues examined include (a) a variety of service delivery issues plaguing professionals working in underserved rural communities, (b) ethical challenges facing the rural mental health professional, (c) specialized training needs of rural practitioners, and (d) job satisfaction and burnout risks confronting rural clinicians. In addition, Dr. Weigel reviews a variety of studies that have attempted to delineate the differences between rural and urban mental health service delivery. Finally, the results of a comprehensive study completed by Dr. Weigel is presented. In this study, rural and urban counselors from four states were surveyed to explore perceived differences in their mental health service delivery experiences in an attempt to better understand the unique challenges facing generalist counselors in todays overstretched rural mental health marketplace.