By Rodriguez                                           H.B. No. 606
       74R2935 CAG-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to certain activities that may be practiced by a licensed
    1-3  professional counselor.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 2(7), Licensed Professional Counselor Act
    1-6  (Article 4512g, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read
    1-7  as follows:
    1-8              (7)  "Practice of counseling" means rendering or
    1-9  offering to render, to individuals, couples, families, groups,
   1-10  organizations, or the general public, counseling or guidance
   1-11  services, for compensation, involving the application of
   1-12  principles, methods, or procedures of the counseling profession
   1-13  that include:
   1-14                    (A)  "counseling" which means assisting one or
   1-15  more clients through the therapeutic relationship, using a
   1-16  combination of mental health and human development principles,
   1-17  methods, and techniques, including the use of psychotherapy, to
   1-18  achieve the mental, emotional, physical, social, moral,
   1-19  educational, spiritual, or career-related development and
   1-20  adjustment of the client throughout the client's life;
   1-21                    (B)  "appraisal activities" which means
   1-22  selecting, administering, scoring, and interpreting instruments
   1-23  designed to assess an individual's aptitudes, attitudes, abilities,
   1-24  achievements, interests, and personal characteristics and the use
    2-1  of methods and techniques for understanding human behavior that may
    2-2  include the evaluation and treatment by counseling methods,
    2-3  techniques, and procedures for mental and emotional disorders,
    2-4  alcoholism and substance abuse, and other habit or conduct
    2-5  disorders including <but does not include> the use of projective
    2-6  techniques <in the assessment of personality>;
    2-7                    (C)  "counseling, guidance, and personnel
    2-8  consulting" which means interpreting or reporting on scientific
    2-9  fact or theory in counseling, guidance, and personnel services to
   2-10  provide assistance in solving some current or potential problems of
   2-11  individuals, couples, families, groups, or organizations; and
   2-12                    (D)  "referral" which means evaluating and
   2-13  identifying needs of a counselee to determine the advisability of
   2-14  referral to other specialists, informing the counselee of such
   2-15  judgment, and communicating as requested or deemed appropriate to
   2-16  such referral sources.
   2-17        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   2-18        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-19  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-20  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-21  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-22  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.