Stormy Filson

In a previous post, I wrote about the need for rural counselors to be generalists. I also noted you need to be ready to treat trauma as trauma is, unfortunately, nearly everywhere. There are high incidences of trauma in places where there are elevated levels of domestic violence, and a high percentage of gun-owner households.

For those of us who love wide open spaces, living in rural America gives gorgeous vistas: broad horizons punctuated by snow-capped mountains or vast, windswept prairie, and a sense of never being hemmed in by too many people.

As I've already noted, Wyoming has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation. The United States overall has a high suicide rate, when compared with other countries, and so in 2010 the nation's Department of Health and Human Services launched the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.

I'd like to return this week to the article I referenced last time, in which ACA author Jonathan Rollins highlights some of the challenges of counseling in rural areas.

Most of the time when we think of cultural competency, we think about working with people from varying ethnicities. Ethnicities different from our own. I am a White counselor, and so it seems it would be easiest for me to work with other White people. We share the same culture, right?