Contemporary Counseling Psychology

Yogi Berra warned "It's always risky to make predictions-especially about the future" (cited in Taylor, 2010, p. 218). Nonetheless, in this chapter, I reflect on five areas toward which the discipline of psychology is moving, that also are of importance to counseling psychology and counseling psychologists. These five directions include a focus on individual differences, a long tradition in counseling psychology, that is highlighted in the Handbook in the context of attention to diversity or under-represented populations or multicultural issues; globalization and internationalization and their increasing societal implications, for which counseling psychology is well positioned; the development of translational research, essential for closing the practice-research gap; technological advances that will dramatically change our science and our practice; and knowledge about neural mechanisms and genotypes that will have important implications for understanding interventions, processes, and outcomes in counseling psychology. These five areas are a thin slice of the emerging opportunities that the future will present for counseling psychology. In today's parlance, ours is a nimble field, with practitioners, researchers, educators, and policy makers who have the skills and dexterity necessary to change with an evolving future and to continue to contribute to the well-being of society and to scientific knowledge.