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An Interview with Samuel Bore: A Licensed Professional Counselor
Ashley Brown
Department of Counseling, Lamar University
CNDV 5304: Foundations of Counseling
Dr. Mary Hestand
October 19, 2023
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An Interview with Samuel Bore: A Licensed Professional Counselor
Dr. Samuel Bore is a Licensed Professional Counselor and certified school counselor in
the state of Texas. He specializes in school counseling, children, adolescents, groups, marriage,
and families. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed scholarly papers in the areas of
Ethics in Counseling, Spirituality, School Counselor and Administrators Collaboration, Group
work in Schools, Cultural Straddling Among Immigrants and Refugees, and Self-injury Among
Teenagers. He also is a master speaker, with research that has been presented at conferences on a
state, national, and international level. One of his biggest career moments was in 2008 when he
received the Texas High School Counselor of the Year Award (S. Bore, personal
communication, October 19, 2023).
The Organization
Dr. Bore works in the Counseling program at the University of Texas at Dallas. As an
organization, their primary goal is to, “Train multi-culturally competent Counselors with applied
social justice emphasis that benefit children, adults, families, schools, and communities locally
and worldwide.” (S. Bore, personal communication, October 19, 2023). This organization serves
Immediate Dallas’ southern sector and the North Texas region in its entirety. However, its
biggest focus is on low-income students who are the first generation to go to college in their
families. His organization provides training for those students to enter the fields of clinical
mental health and school counseling and become licensed professionals and certified school
counselors (S. Bore, personal communication, October 19, 2023).
The structure of this organization operates as a program within a school within the
university. The counseling program exists within the University of Texas at Dallas School of
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Behavioral Health and Human Services. They have a program chair, a role that Dr. Bore also
fills, who heads the entire organization, and that person is under the guidance of the Dean of the
school. Other professionals who work under the program chair are professional counselors with
PhDs, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and psychology licensures (S. Bore,
personal communication, October 19, 2023).
As for this organization's funding, is a state institution so its funding comes from the state
of Texas. However, they do not provide counseling services, so insurance is not accepted in any
form by any staff members. The staff does, however, get supplied by the school with Continuing
Education Units (CEUs) for each licensed professional and firsthand knowledge of current
behavioral health topics through monthly webinars that focus on staff development in those
areas. As far as clients, or students, they place student counselors in counseling agencies that
align with their interests and expertise for their practicum and internships, so that students can
receive the best results alongside satisfying their degree requirements (S. Bore, personal
communication, October 19, 2023).
The Person
Dr. Bore is an Associate Professor and the Chair of the UNTD Counseling Program.
His role in the program is that of Director. Being the head of the program he is, “responsible for
departmental administration and planning, faculty development, internal and external
communication, personnel management, and student support. On a typical day, my
responsibilities include making sure that students are enrolled in courses that match their skill
development levels, matching faculty expertise to the appropriate classes, collaborating with
counseling agencies to secure practica and internship placements, and working with university
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administration to ensure that the program has all the necessary resources for success.” (S. Bore,
personal communication, October 19, 2023).
Being a licensed counselor for a university can come with its challenges. For Dr. Bore, it
can often be difficult to balance the interests of faculty and administration that are constantly
diverging from each other, while on the other side, trying to keep the student interest and success
a priority. This back-and-forth can affect his workload. It sometimes makes it significantly
challenging and requires long hours to complete all his everyday endeavors and find solutions
that satisfy as many people as possible (S. Bore, personal communication, October 19, 2023).
This does not discourage him though. He finds it beneficial to get to set up students for
success. He believes providing oversight in the curriculum can help the students. For Dr. Bore it
helps with up-to-date training of future competent community and school counselors and keeps
them at their best. Even more so for Dr. Bore since he is the chair of the School of Behavioral
Health and Human Services (SHS) Curriculum Committee. This means he has the task of
collecting data on new developments in course standards, interpreting how that data is beneficial
for the students and program, and reporting this information to the committee for review. He
expressed that bringing in all this beneficial data will help develop a successful program is vital
and that element is for his position (S. Bore, personal communication, October 19, 2023).
This position also requires specific skills that are critical to performing well. According
to Dr. Bore, the basics are first. To get to the level of being an associate professor and the chair
of many different programs, you must possess an advanced level of counseling skills and be
licensed as a mental health counselor to fit the minimum requirements for this role. However, to
efficiently do this role justice, you must showcase passion not just expertise. You must be
motivated to see the potential in your program and help it grow to be everything it promotes
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itself to be. You must have the patience to manage an organization, which is made up of more
than just you. It is an entire network of people from top to bottom that all are key to making their
organization function like a well-oiled machine. Finally, you must be a canvas for problems and
the framework for a solution. Working with an organization run by people who serve people
means you will have to deal with the challenges people can bring, so thinking on your feet using
all the knowledge and perspective is vital. Your skills and your passion need to work together to
be what your organization needs it to be (S. Bore, personal communication, October 19, 2023).
As for what an organization needs to be, Dr. Bore sees the similarities across the board.
He believes that his days are similar in comparison to other professionals who head their
counseling programs. The factors that could make the biggest difference would be the program
would be a factor like the program size: what is the demand for it? Also, if a program possesses
a counseling clinic, the option between counseling and case management. If they do possess a
clinic, who do they serve; counseling/case management can vary from students dealing with
academic stress to mature students who have financial concerns and need childcare. Finally, how
do you ensure that you are connecting them to the right resources since neither service is meant
to take the place of intense treatment or long-term care (S. Bore, personal communication,
October 19, 2023)?
In alliance with that care, Dr. Bore did not expect to be providing it on the academic side
of the pendulum. As someone who possesses a license to counsel others in the field of mental
health, he never expected to be working in an administrative setting. Carrying out tasks like,
“…financial planning, curriculum development, and student recruitment.”, were not his initial
plans, but he does enjoy working on this side of counseling which he did not consider when he
first started (S. Bore, personal communication, October 19, 2023).
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However, its challenges can be overwhelming. When work life gets overwhelming the
risk of burnout starts to make itself known, and taking the steps to prevent them can often make a
difference in job satisfaction.
To prevent burnout, Dr. Bore aims to find a balance between his private and professional
life. He sets boundaries on what is reserved for work and what is reserved for home and strives
to be clear about the two. He also advises to seek out support when situations can get too heavy
or tiresome to face alone, as he does with coworkers or family. His final step is to take some time
to yourself if you need it, even if that means taking a day or two off. Carving out time to
recuperate and replenish your energy is one of the most important aspects of self-care so that you
can keep yourself going for a long time (S. Bore, personal communication, October 19, 2023).
Another aspect of survival is a monetary one. For this, Dr. Bore uses the insurance
panels, “Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna”, for reimbursement (S. Bore, personal
communication, October 19, 2023). After this, I thanked Dr, Bore for his time and he thanked me
for the interview.
Reflection
This interview was something that opened my eyes to many things. From how your
passion can be beneficial to an organization to how you may have never imagined yourself at
your organization in the first place. It makes me, a little nervous to be transparent, but it also
motivates me to keep an open mind. Dr. Bore is proof that you can use your skillset and
knowledge to make a difference in a wide array of settings, not just in the traditional ones. It is
normal to have a plan for your life or a dream for your future as you see fit. However, you do not
need to get lost in the small details. Remember that you are pursuing your passion, not for your
name to be on a big desk or a building, but to make a difference in people's lives. To be an aid to
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people who may not know how to seek help from the people around them or maybe not receive
any support at all. This is what should drive you.
Speaking of drive, I was surprised that a professional of Dr. Bore's stature and experience
still experiences burnout. Often when I think about burnout, I imagine tired and heavy-lidded
college students or young teachers with small children. My scope of perspective did not extend
to seasoned professionals who were settled into their jobs for twenty-plus years. To me, they had
the keys to success of conquering burnout, mastered many years ago. Dr. Bore enlightened me
that this is not the case.
According to Carol McKinney, secondary stressful or vicarious trauma is conflated with
burnout. For psychotherapists, burnout can manifest into compassion fatigue since they must
treat extremely distressed patients. Having to be constantly empathetic and compassionate
towards others takes a toll on many therapists and significantly limits their ability to bear the
weight of others' emotional toil (McKinney, 2023). So, counselors and therapists who have been
in the field for a significant amount of time are extremely susceptible to burning out. Bearing
people's emotional burdens for prolonged periods can take a toll on a professional's emotional
and mental state. From these states, the weight can transfer to your physical well-being, and
ultimately making burnout an immense risk.
Burnout is especially rampant in our present time. According to a study done with
education counselors, burnout in a post COVID-19 world was increased by a monolith. Results
suggested that counselors expressed the workload and administrative responsibilities were raised
during COVID, but the amount of support and compensation was not. This led to a major
disruption for teachers and to their compassion and job satisfaction (DeDiego et al., 2023).
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Burnout is not something that can be a one-trick fix. The world can change in unexpected ways
and challenge every resource or skill you thought you had. It can be a universal experience.
However, it should not discourage anyone from pursuing their passions. Many obstacles
can arise even from a career that you love. There is no guarantee that reaching your goals within
your professional life will be easy, but you can gain knowledge from others and do the work to
maintain your well-being to make those hard days worth it. The time I have taken to gather all
this information and these perspectives has shown me that.
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References
DeDiego, A. C., McGrath, A. M., Maurya, R. K., & Szepe, A. A. (2023). Counselor educator
workload and burnout in the era of COVID‐19. Counselor Education and Supervision.
Mckinney, C. J. (2023). The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Burnout Among Counselors: A
Literature Review (Doctoral dissertation, Regent University).