David Capuzzi

David Capuzzi, PhD, NCC, LPC, is a counselor educator and a senior core faculty in community mental health counseling at Walden University and professor emeritus at Portland State University. Previously, he served as an affiliate professor in the epartment of Counselor Education, Counseling Psychology, and Rehabilitation Services at Pennsylvania State University and Scholar in Residence in Counselor Education at Johns Hopkins University. He is past president of the American Counseling Association (ACA), formerly the American Association for Counseling and Development, and past chair of both the ACA Foundation and the ACA Insurance Trust. 

From 1980 to 1984, Dr. Capuzzi was editor of The School Counselor. He has authored several textbook chapters and monographs on the topic of preventing adolescent suicide and is coeditor and author with Dr. Larry Golden of Helping Families Help Children: Family Interventions With School Related Problems (1986) and Preventing Adolescent Suicide (1988). He coauthored and edited with Douglas R. Gross Youth at Risk: A Prevention Resource for Counselors, Teachers, and Parents (1989, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2014, and 2019); Introduction to the Counseling Profession (1991, 1995,1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017); Introduction to Group Work (1992, 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2010); and Counseling and Psychotherapy: Theories and Interventions (1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011). 

In addition to Foundations of Addictions Counseling (2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) and Foundations of Group Counseling (2019), published by Pearson with Dr. Mark D. Stauffer, he and Dr. Stauffer have published Career Counseling: Foundations, Perspectives, and Applications (2006, 2012, 2019); Foundations of Couples, Marriage, and Family Counseling (2015, 2021); Human Growth and Development Across the Life Span: Applications for Counselors (2016); and Counseling and Psychotherapy: Theories and Interventions (2016, 2022). Other books include Approaches to Group Work: A Handbook for Practitioners (2003), Suicide Across the Life Span (2006), and Sexuality Issues in Counseling, the last coauthored and edited with Larry D. Burlew. He has authored or coauthored articles in several ACA-related journals. 

A frequent speaker and keynoter at professional conferences and institutes, Dr. Capuzzi has also consulted with a variety of school districts and community agencies interested in initiating prevention and intervention strategies for adolescents at risk for suicide. He has facilitated the development of suicide prevention, crisis management, and postvention programs in communities throughout the United States; provides training on the topics of youth at risk and grief and loss; and serves as an invited adjunct faculty member at other universities as time permits.  

An ACA fellow, he is the first recipient of ACA’s Kitty Cole Human Rights Award and is also a recipient of the Leona Tyler Award in Oregon. In 2010, he received ACA’s Gilbert and Kathleen Wrenn Award for a Humanitarian and Caring Person. In 2011, he was named a distinguished alumni of the College of Education at Florida State University, and in 2016, he received the Locke/Paisley Mentorship award from the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision. In 2018, he received the Mary Smith Arnold Anti-Oppression Award from the Counselors for Social Justice, a division of ACA, as well as the U.S. President’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the 2019 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision.  

One of Dr. Capuzzi’s most recent contributions to the profession was a webinar series titled Leading Lights in Counseling developed for Walden University in 2021. This series featured prominent scholars and practitioners who addressed pertinent issues and topics that impact the role of the counselor and other helping professionals.