Therapist or Ideological Enforcer? How Mission Statements Show the Dangerous Shift in Counselor Training

Mental health education is turning into social justice indoctrination—here’s the proof.

Jan 27, 2025

A future therapist raises her hand in class and asks, “What if a client doesn’t see the world through an oppression lens?” The professor glares. The air turns cold. The answer is clear: That client is wrong. The student shifts uncomfortably in her seat, realizing she has stumbled into dangerous territory—not of clinical ethics, but of ideological dogma.

In a CACREP-accredited counseling program, questioning the dominant DEI narrative isn’t seen as critical thinking; it’s seen as defiance, though it would be labeled defensiveness, racism, or transphobia depending on how deep the group is into a purity spiral.

Future therapists are not just being trained to listen and support, but to broach topics like race and probe for white privilege or oppression. This is not a mistake. This is happening across the country as required by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).

To better understand how pervasive this is across the country, we are going to focus on mission statements from various graduate counseling programs in sectors of the United States. But first, let’s look at the standard and how mission statements function in general.

The CACREP Requirement

The CACREP standard calls for counselor training programs to be centered on a specific worldview. It directs that, by making requirements about the central purpose of the training program. This is what CACREP asks for:

PROGRAM MISSION: reflects counseling practice in a diverse, multicultural, and global society with marginalized populations;

Right off the bat, this demands the adoption of a specific worldview. While the term diverse could still be generalized in theory, paired with “multicultural, and global society with marginalized populations,” this is obviously being used with politicized connotations.

Multiculturalism and marginalized populations have well-known associations with postmodern philosophy, communism, and Critical Theories. Now we know where we stand.

What’s even more telling is what has been left out. CACREP could have asked for anything in their standard, but they notably omitted any stipulation that counseling programs should have mission statements centered around producing, say, ethically astute graduates.

Also absent are critical thinking, non-judgmental support for clients regardless of race, creed, sex etc, or respect for client autonomy.

How about even a directive to focus training on interventions that are proven to help clients? Likewise a focus on training in cutting-edge modalities as a counter-point to those focused on traditional interventions?

Nope, nope, and nope. CACREP didn’t ask for any of those things.

Producing ethical counselors, who are well-trained in proven modalities, cutting-edge interventions, or solely focused on client well-being, is not part of the standard mission for counselor training.

Isn’t that the eye-opener?

If the standard mission of counselor training isn’t to produce ethical graduates, trained in proven or new modalities with the purpose of improving client mental health, what is?

Indoctrination.

What is the Purpose of a Mission Statement?

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a mission statement:

is a concise explanation of an organization’s reason for existence and describes its purpose, intention and overall objectives. The mission statement supports the vision and serves to communicate purpose and direction to employees, customers, vendors and other stakeholders.

A mission statement is the foundation of everything else an organization does.

A good mission statement is clear, concise, and focused on the group’s core purpose and values. It should inspire action and communicate the ‘why’ behind what the organization does and who it serves. It should also do this in a memorable way.

Now that we have clarity on what CACREP requires as the standard mission of counselor training programs, let’s see how it shows up in practice by looking at the mission statements from programs across the country, and some of the ensuing results.

The mission statements can speak for themselves.

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Counselor Training Mission Statements

Take George Washington University, located in Washington D.C. This is the Mission statement for their Mental Health Counseling Program, followed directly by a Counseling and Human Development (CHD) departmental Statement on Antiracism and anti-oppression as it appears in the linked handbook. Bolding and italics have been added for easier skimming.

Mission

The GW Counseling Programs are committed to preparing knowledgeable and ethical practitioners, researchers, scholars, and leaders in the profession. Our programs emphasize working with diverse populations and developing strategies to promote the social, emotional, psychological, and physical health of individuals, families, communities, and organizations, build student’s capacity to conduct research, provide clinical supervision, and teach at the graduate level. We contribute to human development, adjustment, and change by encouraging our diverse faculty and student body to engage in reflective practice, critical inquiry, civic engagement, and responsible social action.

CHD Statement on Antiracism and Anti-Oppression

Being anti-racist involves the internal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural commitment to confront and eliminate racism that exists in ideals and policies. In critical reflection of our individual and collective responsibilities to dismantle white supremacy and advance anti-oppressive andragogy, the CHD department is committed to anti-racist practices that:

1. Address racism and discrimination directly through explicit discussion and action.

2. Increase awareness of prejudice and confront its effects through the discussion of past and present racism, stereotyping and discrimination in society.

3. Disrupt and dismantle the systems and structures that codify institutional racism and oppression within the department, the university, and the counseling profession.

4. Disrupt and dismantle racial power inequities within the department, the university, and the counseling profession.

5. Deeply challenge and hold all members of the CHD community accountable to advance their own anti-racism praxis; and

6. Ensure the content and delivery of the curricula reflects this focus.

The mission statement for Jacksonville State University (JSU) in Alabama fails right off the bat for being outrageously long, but it also includes an emphasis on multicultural competence. And one wonders about those ‘dispositions.’

The mission of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program is to prepare graduate students from northeast Alabama and the surrounding area for success as they move toward: (1) counseling positions in mental health agencies; (2) LPC licensure application in Alabama, Georgia, and beyond; and/or (3) continued progress toward a terminal degree in Counselor Education. The program is designed to identify, train, and assist candidates with the skills and dispositions needed to become capable counselors and creative decision-makers, able to facilitate client growth by utilizing refined communication skills, equipped to creatively and appropriately apply therapeutic techniques, consistently employ ethical practice in keeping with the Code of Ethics and Standards of practice endorsed by the counseling profession, and exhibit multicultural competence and respect for diversity. Teaching, scholarship and service are values demonstrated throughout the program. Self-awareness, intellectual development and social consciousness are supported and encouraged. The program has sought and been awarded transfer of accreditation of the Community Agency program to the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). This transition was awarded in January 2016. The program is accredited through March 31, 2026.

Qualified and experienced faculty mentor each counselor-in-training, many of whom are first-generation college students. The program is designed to identify, train, and assist candidates who have or gain the skills and dispositions needed to become capable counselors and creative decision makers as they meet the challenges of the 21st century.

JSU is using the textbook, Counseling the Culturally Diverse (CCD) 9th Edition by Derald Wing Sue, for its Social and Cultural Diversity in Counseling Class. Here is a quote from that book:

There is a word of caution that needs to be directed toward students of marginalized groups as they read CCD and find it affirming and validating. In teaching the course, we have often encountered students of color who become very contentious and highly outspoken toward White classmates. A good example is provided in the reaction of the African American student in the fourth scenario. It is clear that the student seems to take delight in seeing his White classmates “squirm” and be uncomfortable. In this respect, he may be taking out his own anger and frustration upon White classmates, and his concern has less to do with helping them understand than having them feel some of the pain and hurt he has felt over the years. It is important to express and understand one's anger (it can be healing), but becoming verbally abusive toward another is counterproductive to building rapport and mutual respect. As People of Color, for example, we must realize that our enemies are not White Americans, but White supremacy!

That same book is used at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). This is their mission statement, which is also way too long.

The UAF Counseling Program is committed to providing future counselors with transformative educational experiences grounded in active adult learning theory. We are invested in deconstructing colonialism to engage students from diverse backgrounds to claim space in the educational setting and the counseling profession. The faculty strives to develop culturally attuned counselors serving diverse populations across Alaska, nationally, and internationally.

We subscribe to the scientist-practitioner-advocate model, teaching student responsiveness to the changing requirements of a dynamic, pluralistic society with new and emerging evidenced-based practices that accommodate culturally diverse worldviews. A key aim is to facilitate bi-directional learning opportunities to enhance student self-awareness, insight, empathy, compassion, curiosity, understanding, and commitment. We provide high quality counselor preparation grounded in current research, program evaluation, and improvement. Counseling Program Objectives:

The UAF counseling program will admit high quality, diverse candidates from rural and urban areas of Alaska.
Students will acquire foundational knowledge of the field of counseling, human development, counseling theories, professional ethics, career development, assessment and testing, multicultural counseling, research and program evaluation, counseling interventions, and group counseling.
Students will develop counseling skills and refine professional characteristics through coursework and practical experience in the field of counseling.
Students will acquire knowledge, develop skills, and refine professional characteristics, through coursework and practical experience related to their selected degree concentration:School CounselingClinical Mental Health Counseling
Students will be consumers of research to support their learning and future professional practice.
Program graduates will be well prepared to begin work as professional Clinical Mental Health or School Counselors.
Employers will hire program graduates and recognize their high-quality preparation for the work environment.

Kansas State University’s counseling program has this as its mission statement:

Our department's academic components have a mission of preparing knowledgeable, ethical, caring decision makers who demonstrate inclusive perspectives toward the contexts of groups and institutions; student development and learning; teaching and guidance; inquiry and research methods; and research-enlightened clinical application, consultation, and practice.

According to this syllabus for their class, Multicultural Counseling, the class a lecture on racism and White Privilege at the top of the second week, which includes a video called Racism Has a Cost for Everyone.

While it is impossible to be sure what video that could be without a link, there is a popular TED talk with that title, and that video just happens to blame the subprime mortgage crisis on racism.

The syllabus includes a statement regarding discrimination and harassment that states the university is committed to maintaining environments free of these things. One wonders how the university would respond to a harassment and discrimination complaint due to this coursework.

According to the textbook used for this class, Developing a Multicultural Counseling Competence 4th Edition by Hayes and Erford, it might depend on the skin color of the person making the complaint. Consider this quote from pages 132-133:

White Fragility

White men, White women, and those who receive proxy privilege are expected to be protected from racial distress. When they are not protected, White fragility may be activated. DiAngelo (2018) described White fragility as the internal need for White people to re-establish cognitive and affective equilibrium regarding their own Whiteness. She described this state of racial equilibrium as a “cocoon of racial comfort, centrality, superiority, entitlement, racial apathy, obliviousness” (p. 112). White people rely on various defense mechanisms to maintain racial inequality and racial comfort.
White people’s psychological responses to racism and White privilege are linked to how they orient themselves with people of color. Responses can include: (a) minimizing the notion that racism and White privilege exist in general or for particular individuals; (b) locating instances in which people of color are to blame for, and White people are deserving of, the experiences they respectively have; and (c) drawing attention to specific instances of racism and White privilege in general society or their subjective experiences. Understanding why and how White people respond to these constructs is further complicated by the notion that the same White person engages differently with people of color, depending on the setting, time, or circumstance. In essence, these responses are defense mechanisms used to maintain a particular racial identity. It is important to remember that individuals’ personal identity, particularly their racial identity, guides how they think about or process new information and how they interact with members of their own and other racial and ethnic groups. Thus, their responses remain quite stable and difficult to change…

When White people are called racist, various responses can occur: anger, shame, guilt, fatigue and emotional withdrawal, as well as a sense of being singled out, attacked, silenced, victimized, or insulted. Other responses can include intellectualization, silence, physical withdrawal, argumentation, minimization, introduction of anti-racist exceptions, crying, and seeking absolution for one’s role in racism (DiAngelo, 2018). Guided by an interpersonal need to portray themselves as progressive and culturally competent, White people often unconsciously seek to bolster and maintain several structures to minimize any backlash related to their personal role in racism and upholding the system of White supremacy (DiAngelo, 2018). These structures include racial insulation and privilege and are associated with many of the psychological responses listed below.

Is it any wonder that white students in these classes, ‘squirm’? In the past, psychology professionals would be the first to point out that labeling someone’s negative reaction to being called racist as proof of guilty privilege is a double bind. Double binds are used in ritual abuse and torture.

The end justifies the means.

Thanks to CACREP, we know that the end goal involves “a diverse, multicultural, and global society with marginalized populations.”

What future does this leave for so-called ‘privileged populations’? Are they, ‘included’?

In a world where mental health educators have given themselves permission to torture, it’s long past time to demand accreditation reform.

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About

Diogenes in Exile began after I returned to grad school to pursue a Clinical Mental Health Counseling master’s degree at the University of Tennessee. What I encountered, however, was a program deeply entrenched in Critical Theories ideology. During my time there, I experienced significant resistance, particularly for my Buddhist practice, which was labeled as invalidating to other identities. After careful reflection, I chose to leave the program, believing the curriculum being taught would ultimately harm clients and lead to unethical practices in the field.

Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to investigating, writing, and speaking out about the troubling direction of psychology, higher education, and other institutions that seem to have lost their way. When I’m not working on these issues, you’ll find me in the garden, creating art, walking my dog, or guiding my kids toward adulthood.

You can also find my work at Minding the Campus