In this episode, I’m challenging a common habit in school counseling: labeling student distress as “anxiety” before it actually meets clinical criteria.

You’ll hear the research behind "prevalence inflation," how DSM standards separate normal worry from clinical anxiety, and the four-question test that will change how you approach 504 plans, school refusal, and all your anxiety-related counseling referrals.

Because when we mislabel discomfort, exclusion, or instability as anxiety, we don’t just miss the root issue. We build an entire intervention around the wrong problem.

Run the four-question test before you write the accommodation.

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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.