School Counseling Has Two Futures- and We’re Running Out of Time
Mon Feb 02 2026
You hold a master’s degree. You studied crisis intervention, psychopathology, and therapeutic technique.
So why is your profession still fighting to be seen as essential?
It doesn’t have to stay this way- but the window is closing.
In this episode, I lay out two possible futures for school counseling: one that ends in irrelevance, and one where we finally become the campus influence we were meant to be.
What’s pushing us toward the wrong path isn’t what most counselors think.
And fixing it will require a shift few are talking about.
Stop being helpful. Start being undeniable.
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Join our new Skool for School Counselors community
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Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us!
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All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.
This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.
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You hold a master’s degree. You studied crisis intervention, psychopathology, and therapeutic technique. So why is your profession still fighting to be seen as essential? It doesn’t have to stay this way- but the window is closing. In this episode, I lay out two possible futures for school counseling: one that ends in irrelevance, and one where we finally become the campus influence we were meant to be. What’s pushing us toward the wrong path isn’t what most counselors think. And fixing it will require a shift few are talking about. Stop being helpful. Start being undeniable. ******** Join our new Skool for School Counselors community ******** Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! ******** All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy. This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.