The Catalyst Problem in School Counseling

Most school counselors aren’t ineffective.They’re mis-measured.In this episode, Steph challenges one of the profession’s most sacred assumptions and names something about her own work that most counselors wouldn’t dare say out loud.This conversation explores what it means to do catalytic work in a system obsessed with finished products, and why that mismatch is costing counselors their confidence.*********************************Join the next-level conversation in my Substack.*********************************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.