This page explains how the Counseling Psychology Faculty Research Interests List is created and updated, how to interpret its main fields, and some important limitations of the resource.
Q: What process did you use to create the List?
The List is designed to help prospective students and others identify counseling psychology faculty whose research may overlap with their interests. It is intended to be reasonably comprehensive within a clearly defined scope, but it is not a complete census of all counseling psychologists or all researchers whose work is relevant to counseling psychology.
We use the APA accreditation directory and CPA accreditation directory as the primary starting point for identifying doctoral programs. The List includes counseling psychology PhD and PsyD programs, as well as combined doctoral programs in which counseling psychology is one of the APA/CPA-recognized specialty areas.
The Psych Specialty column uses the following abbreviations: “Co” for Counseling Psychology, “Co/Cl” for combined Counseling and Clinical Psychology, “Co/Sc” for combined Counseling and School Psychology, and “Co/Cl/Sh” for programs that combine Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology. Clinical-only programs, School-only programs, and combined Clinical/School programs that do not include Counseling Psychology are outside the List’s scope.
Within qualifying programs, we use current official university and program webpages to identify faculty associated with the doctoral program. Because universities differ in how they define core, affiliated, clinical, teaching, research, and other faculty roles, some judgment is sometimes necessary when determining who belongs on the List.
The List does not systematically include:
- Counseling psychologists who conduct research outside academia
- Counseling psychologists at universities that do not have a doctoral program within the List’s scope
- Doctoral students
- Researchers in other psychology specialties or other professions who study topics that overlap with counseling psychology
- Every adjunct, affiliate, supervisor, collaborator, or other person who may have some connection to a qualifying program
For these reasons, many researchers doing work relevant to counseling psychology will not appear in the List. The List is best understood as a practical faculty-research directory rather than a definitive census of the field.
Q: How often is the List updated?
The List is updated each September using current university sources and GenAI. Faculty affiliations, titles, research interests, program structures, admissions practices, and webpages change over time, so an annual refresh is necessary. Corrections may also be made between annual updates when users identify clear errors or important changes.
During each refresh, we recheck faculty affiliation and titles, replace dead or outdated links when possible, update research-interest descriptions when current sources show a meaningful change, and refresh the applicant-oriented fields using the best current information we can find.
Q: What information does the List contain?
For each faculty member, the List may include:
- University, degree type, psychology specialty, state, faculty name, and professional title
- Links to the doctoral program and to a faculty or research-interest webpage
- A description of the faculty member’s current research interests based primarily on official university sources
- A GenAI-generated summary of the faculty member’s broader research program based on published work
- The best available information about whether the faculty member is reviewing applications for admission to their research team or lab for the admissions cycle named in the spreadsheet
- The best available information about whether the faculty member encourages, allows, discourages, or otherwise comments on prospective applicants emailing before applying
- Research-topic indicators that allow users to filter the List by broad areas of research interest
Q: What do the application-status labels mean?
The application-status field answers a narrow question: for the admissions cycle identified in the spreadsheet, does the faculty member appear to be reviewing applicants for admission to their research team or lab?
Yes: A current faculty or program source indicates that the faculty member is reviewing or accepting applicants.
No: A current faculty or program source indicates that the faculty member is not reviewing or accepting applicants.
ChatGPT unsure: We could not find sufficiently current or sufficiently explicit information to make a confident determination.
Not Applicable: The program does not appear to use a faculty-by-faculty or apprentice-style admissions model in which applicants are admitted directly to a specific faculty member’s research team or lab.
“Not Applicable” should not be interpreted to mean that the faculty member is unavailable to advise, supervise, teach, serve on dissertations, or mentor students after admission. It means that faculty-specific lab admission is not the relevant admissions structure for that program.
Occasionally, the spreadsheet may use more specific wording when a program provides information that does not fit neatly into these shorthand labels. Admissions information can change quickly, so applicants should always verify faculty availability using the program’s current admissions materials.
Q: How did you code faculty preferences about prospective students emailing before applying?
We look for explicit guidance on faculty, lab, or program webpages. We do not assume that a faculty member wants to be contacted simply because their email address is publicly available.
Email Encouraged: The faculty member or program explicitly encourages prospective students to make contact before applying.
Email OK: The source indicates that prospective applicants may contact the faculty member, but does not specifically encourage doing so.
Email Discouraged: The faculty member or program explicitly asks prospective applicants not to email before applying.
ChatGPT unsure: We could not find a clear, current preference.
Some faculty or programs use more specific wording, such as saying that emailing in advance is unnecessary. Applicants should follow the current instructions provided by the faculty member or program whenever those instructions are available.
Q: Where do the faculty research-interest descriptions come from?
Official university sources are the primary source of research-interest information. We typically begin with the counseling psychology program webpage and the faculty member’s university profile. When those pages do not contain enough information, we may use another current official university page.
The goal is to represent how the faculty member or institution currently describes the faculty member’s research interests. Depending on the source, the spreadsheet may reproduce, lightly condense, or synthesize official wording. The amount of detail varies because some universities publish much more complete faculty research descriptions than others.
When an existing research-interest description remains substantively consistent with current official sources, we generally retain it rather than rewriting it simply for stylistic consistency. We revise it when current sources indicate a meaningful addition, deletion, correction, or shift in emphasis.
Q: What is the “Research Program Based on Published Articles” field?
This field is different from the official research-interest description. It is a GenAI-generated synthesis intended to help users see broader patterns across a faculty member’s published scholarship. It may be useful for discovery, but it is not an official statement written or approved by the faculty member.
Because GenAI can make mistakes, this field may contain omissions, overgeneralizations, or incorrect inferences. If the AI-generated research-program summary differs from a faculty member’s current official profile or recent publications, users should give greater weight to the official and primary sources.
Q: How were the research-topic categories coded?
Columns N through AV contain 35 broad research-topic categories that make it easier to sort and filter the List. A “1” indicates that the faculty member’s research-interest description was coded as fitting that category; a blank cell means the category was not coded for that faculty member.
These topic codes are based on the faculty member’s research-interest description in the List, not on the separate GenAI-generated summary of published work. The coding is GenAI-assisted and can make mistakes, so users should read the underlying research-interest description rather than relying exclusively on the topic indicators.
The categories are intentionally broad. They are meant to support searching and filtering, not to serve as a definitive taxonomy of a scholar’s work or to imply that every important aspect of a faculty member’s research can be represented by a small set of topic labels.
Q: Why are faculty from PsyD programs included?
Many counseling psychologists affiliated with PsyD programs conduct research and involve doctoral students in research. Because the purpose of the List is to represent counseling psychology faculty research, excluding PsyD faculty would omit a meaningful part of the field.
Q: Why are faculty from combined programs included?
Some APA-accredited and CPA-accredited doctoral programs combine counseling psychology with clinical psychology, school psychology, or both. When counseling psychology is one of the program’s recognized specialties, the program falls within the List’s scope. Combined programs that do not include counseling psychology are excluded.
Faculty training backgrounds and research traditions may vary within a combined program, so users should consult the program’s own materials when they want to understand how a specific faculty member fits within that program’s training model.
Q: Which faculty are included or excluded within a qualifying program?
We seek to include faculty who are clearly associated with the qualifying doctoral program and whose inclusion is useful for understanding the program’s faculty research landscape. Faculty titles vary widely across universities, so title alone is not used as a universal inclusion rule.
Clinical, teaching, practice, research, adjunct, or affiliated faculty may appear when the program clearly identifies them as part of the doctoral program or when their role and research make their inclusion useful. Conversely, faculty are generally removed when current evidence shows that they have left the relevant program or institution.
Emeritus faculty are generally excluded because programs vary greatly in whether they list emeritus faculty and in whether those faculty remain active in advising, teaching, admissions, or research.
Q: Is this List a doctoral program finder?
No. The List can be very useful for generating faculty and program leads, especially when a prospective student is trying to identify people who study a particular topic. It is not intended to rank programs or determine where someone should apply.
Research fit can be especially important in faculty-by-faculty or apprentice-style admissions models, but its role varies across programs. Applicants should also consider other aspects of fit, such as training model, clinical opportunities, funding, internship outcomes, licensure preparation, program climate, geography, cost, and other priorities that matter to them.
Q: Why might information be missing or inaccurate?
University webpages are not always complete, current, or internally consistent. A program page, department directory, faculty profile, lab page, and admissions page may be updated at different times. A new faculty member may join after the annual refresh, a faculty member may change institutions, or a program may change its admissions procedures between updates.
When sources conflict, we generally prefer the source that appears most current and most directly connected to the relevant doctoral program. Even with careful review, some information will inevitably become outdated and some judgment calls will be imperfect.
Q: How should I interpret the GenAI-assisted information?
GenAI is used to help synthesize published research, categorize research topics, and support the large-scale annual update process. These tools make a resource of this size much more feasible to maintain, but they are imperfect and can make mistakes.
For important decisions—especially deciding where to apply—users should verify key information using current program webpages, faculty webpages, recent publications, and official admissions instructions.
Q: I found an error or omission. What should I do?
Corrections from faculty members, students, programs, and other users are welcome. A resource of this size will never be perfectly current, and user feedback helps make it more accurate between annual updates.
If you find information that should be corrected, please submit a request using the CPFRI List Update Request Form. Including a current source link or enough detail to verify the correction is especially helpful.
Return to the Counseling Psychology Faculty Research Interests List landing page.