Sex Therapy Sexual Health Attitudes, Knowledge, and Clinical Behaviors: Implications for Counseling

This article explores the impact of practitioners ’ attitudes and knowledge of sexual health on clinical behaviors. Sexual health topics are often areas of concern for clients of any age in counseling. Thus, counselors must be trained and equipped to address sexual health across the life span. This study explored whether child and adolescent clinical mental health staff’s attitudes and knowledge of sexual health predicted their clinical behaviors. Results indicated that the practitioners ’ attitudes about sexual health, not their sexual health knowledge level, predicted whether or not they addressed sexual health with clients. Implications and suggestions for counselors and counselor educators are provided. Keywords sexual health, children, mental health, attitudes toward sexuality, clinical behaviors A defining characteristic of counselor educators is that they counsel individuals, couples, and families using a developmen-tal approach. According to the current standards of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Pro-grams (CACREP), counselors in training must receive instruc-tion in a variety of life course issues to best serve their clien