Becoming a Counselor

Samuel T. Gladding was a professor and past chair of the Department of Counseling at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was a practicing counselor in both public and private agencies since 1971. His leadership in the field of counseling included service as




* president of the American Counseling Association (ACA),




* president of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES),




* president of the Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW),




* president of the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors,




* president of Chi Sigma Iota (counseling academic and professional honor society international),




* president of the American Association of State Counseling Boards, and




* vice president of the Association for Humanistic Counseling (AHC).




Gladding was the former editor of the Journal for Specialists in Group Work and the ASGW newsletter. He was also the past chair of the American Counseling Association Foundation. A prolific author of refereed journal articles, books, book chapters, and poetry, Gladding was cited as being in the top 1% of contributors to ACA's flagship journal, the Journal of Counseling & Development, for the 15-year period from 1978 to 1993. Some of Gladding's most recent books are The Creative Arts in Counseling (6th ed.; 2021), A Concise Guide to Opioid Addiction for Counselors (with Kevin Alderson, 2021), Group Work: A Counseling Specialty (8th ed.; 2020), Family Therapy: History, Theory and Process (7th ed.; 2019), Choosing the Right Counselor for You (with Kevin Alderson, 2019), The Counseling Dictionary (4th ed.; 2018), and Counseling: A Comprehensive Profession (8th ed.; 2018). In addition, Gladding produced a dozen films on counseling.




Gladding's previous academic appointments have been at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Fairfield University (Connecticut), and Rockingham Community College (Wentworth, North Carolina). He was also Director of Children's Services at the Rockingham County (North Carolina) Mental Health Center at the beginning of his career. Gladding received his degrees from Wake Forest University (BA, MAEd), Yale University (MAR), and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (PhD). He was a national certified counselor, a certified clinical mental health counselor, and a licensed clinical mental health counselor (North Carolina). He also served as a member of the North Carolina Board of Examiners in Counseling and the Alabama Board of Examiners in Counseling.

Dr. Gladding passed away in December 2021.