Dr. Michael T. Hartley is a professor in the Counseling Program at The University of Arizona. His scholarship is focused on the intersection of rehabilitation counseling and mental health counseling with an emphasis on supporting people with diverse physical, sensory, mental, and cognitive disabilities to function well in different environments. He is dedicated to the ethics of integrative care and the complex connections between physical and mental health, including the role of trauma and social determinants of health. In this way, his research, teaching, and service all revolve around critically framing the application of ethical principles within a dominant cultural context that has historically devalued and socially restricted the lives of people with disabilities. Much of his work targets distributive justice issues and therefore has included the importance of promoting resilience and of advocating against ableism (i.e., ways in which society’s structures, institutions, and ideological systems continue to disadvantage people with disabilities). Unique across his scholarship is deep commitment to self-determination, advocacy, and social justice as foundational principles guiding the history and evolution of the contemporary practice of counseling. Dr. Hartley identifies as rehabilitation counselor scholar with expertise in mental health, psychiatric rehabilitation, somatic therapies, and the social construction of mental health.
