The history items: Parsons, Rogers, the 1950s, and the dates you have to know.
The professional orientation area asks who founded what and when. A timeline in one page.
By Dr. Andrew Wichterman · September 15, 2026 · 5 min read · Updated October 26, 2026
The professional orientation area includes a handful of items on the history and organization of the profession. They are pure recall, and this page holds most of what is asked.
Origins
- 1908: Frank Parsons founds the Vocation Bureau in Boston; Choosing a Vocation (1909) launches vocational guidance. Parsons is the "father of guidance."
- 1908: Clifford Beers publishes A Mind That Found Itself, starting the mental hygiene movement.
- 1905: Binet and Simon publish the first intelligence test. 1917: Army Alpha and Beta.
- 1913: National Vocational Guidance Association, the ancestor of ACA.
- 1909: Freud lectures at Clark University; psychoanalysis arrives in America.
The middle decades
- 1930s: E. G. Williamson's Minnesota point of view, directive trait-and-factor counseling.
- 1942: Carl Rogers publishes Counseling and Psychotherapy, the nondirective challenge to Williamson and to psychoanalysis. 1951: Client-Centered Therapy.
- 1952: APGA (American Personnel and Guidance Association) is formed, becoming AACD in 1983 and ACA in 1992. Also 1952: the first DSM; and Eysenck's critique of psychotherapy outcomes.
- 1958: National Defense Education Act funds school counselor training after Sputnik.
- 1963: Community Mental Health Centers Act.
- 1950s: Ellis (REBT), Perls (Gestalt), Skinner, Wolpe, and Super's career development theory all emerge.
Professionalization
- 1976: Virginia becomes the first state to license professional counselors.
- 1981: CACREP is founded to accredit counselor education programs.
- 1982: NBCC is founded; the NCE is first administered in 1983.
- 1986: AMHCA and NBCC establish the CCMHC.
- 2009: California becomes the last state to pass counselor licensure legislation; all fifty states license counselors as of 2010.
- 2014: the current ACA Code of Ethics.
- 2020s: the Counseling Compact is enacted and becomes operational.
Why the dates cluster where they do
The timeline is easier to hold as three streams that merged. The first is vocational guidance: Parsons in Boston, Jesse Davis running the first systematic school guidance program in Grand Rapids in 1907, and the NVGA in 1913, all responding to industrialization and immigration. The second is testing and mental hygiene: Binet, the Army Alpha and Beta in the First World War, Beers, and the rise of the psychometric tradition that Williamson turned into directive counseling. The third is psychotherapy, arriving with Freud in 1909 and transformed by Rogers in the 1940s.
The 1950s are crowded because the three streams met. APGA formed in 1952 from the NVGA and three other organizations; Rogers, Ellis, Perls, Skinner and Wolpe published within a few years of each other; Super and Ginzberg gave career development its theories; and Sputnik in 1957 made the federal government pay for school counselors through the NDEA the next year. The 1960s and 1970s added community mental health, deinstitutionalization and the civil rights movement, which is where multicultural counseling begins, and Virginia's 1976 licensure law made counseling a regulated profession. Everything after that is professionalization: accreditation, certification, a code, a compact.
The names behind the organizations
Gilbert Wrenn wrote The Counselor in a Changing World in 1962 and coined "cultural encapsulation," which the diversity items still use. Thomas Sweeney founded Chi Sigma Iota in 1985 and was central to the licensure movement. Donald Super gave the field its developmental career theory from 1953 on. C. H. Patterson and Leona Tyler shaped counseling psychology at midcentury. Gerald Caplan published The Theory and Practice of Mental Health Consultation in 1970, which is why consultation is a tested topic. Paul Pedersen called multiculturalism the fourth force in counseling, after psychodynamic, behavioral and humanistic.
Organizational dates worth a card: AMHCA was founded in 1976 and became an ACA division in 1978. ASCA dates from 1952. CACREP began in 1981, and in 2017 absorbed CORE, the rehabilitation counseling accreditor, so rehabilitation programs are now accredited under CACREP. NBCC began in 1982, and CCE, its affiliate, in 1995. The NCMHCE came after the NCE, with the CCMHC credential in 1986. The ACA Code has been revised in 1995, 2005 and 2014; the 2014 revision is the current one.
How the items are written
History items take three forms. Who: "Who is considered the father of the guidance movement?" Parsons, and the distractors are Beers, Rogers and Williamson. What came first: "Which occurred first?" with four events, usually spanning the century; the answer depends on knowing the decade, not the year, so learn the decades and the order within a decade only for the crowded 1950s. And which organization does what: licenses, certifies, accredits, or advocates, which is a four-way distinction between state boards, NBCC, CACREP and ACA.
Two traps. The first is confusing the founder of an idea with the founder of an organization: Parsons founded a bureau and a movement, not the NVGA, which formed after his death. The second is confusing the first state to license with the last: Virginia in 1976, California in 2009. A card for each of the three item types, run weekly, is enough; the history area is small, and it is the easiest part of the exam to make certain.
Organizations to keep straight
ACA: the professional association, with divisions such as AMHCA (clinical mental health), ASCA (school), ACES (counselor educators and supervisors) and NCDA (career). CACREP: accredits programs. NBCC: certifies counselors (NCC) and writes the exams. CCE: NBCC's affiliate that administers the exams and credentials such as the BCC. State licensing boards: license counselors; separate from all of the above. Chi Sigma Iota: the honor society.
Practice this. The flashcards and practice tests on this site are sorted by content area, so you can drill this one until it holds.
Parsons 1908, Rogers 1942, APGA 1952, Virginia 1976, CACREP 1981, NBCC 1982. Six dates cover most of the history items.