CACREP Board of Directors
Current board member of the Council on Accreditation for Counseling and Related Educational Programs — the primary accrediting body for graduate counseling programs in the United States.
About
Dr. Aaron Mertes
Counselor, professor, rehabilitation specialist, and author. Based in Wisconsin.
Background
Professor, clinician, and rehabilitation counselor.
Aaron is a professor of Mental Health and School Counseling at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. His clinical background spans outpatient therapy, inpatient treatment, crisis counseling, and rehabilitation counseling.
As a rehabilitation counselor, he has spent much of his education and career exploring career options for rehabilitation counselors — working to understand the full scope of practice available in the field and to make that information accessible to students and new professionals.
He sees individual and couples clients through Smokefall Counseling and is available in person at Crossroads Counseling in Janesville, Wisconsin, and via telehealth across the state.
Clinical Approach
Collaborative, reflective, and grounded in how people actually change.
Aaron's clinical work integrates attention to emotion, relational patterns, regulatory capacity, and the stories people use to make sense of their lives. Therapy is framed as a collaborative process — not a set of techniques applied to a problem, but a sustained effort to understand what is happening and why.
The work draws on person-centered attunement, psychodynamic attention to pattern and meaning, emotion-focused approaches to processing and regulation, attachment theory, and neurobiological understandings of how the nervous system responds to stress and relational experience.
In practice, this means slowing down to notice what is actually present — emotionally, physically, relationally — before trying to change it. The goal is not symptom removal but a more honest and flexible relationship with one's own experience, and with others.
- Develop clearer language for internal experience and relational patterns.
- Understand protective strategies without reducing the person to symptoms.
- Strengthen regulation before moving into difficult material.
- Connect insight to practical shifts in work, relationships, and behavior.
A full description of his therapeutic approach and informed consent documentation is available on the Services page.
Credentials & Leadership
Academic, professional, and organizational roles.
IARP Leadership
Leadership roles within the International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals, including past editor-in-chief of the Journal of Life Care Planning (JLCP).
CRCC
Participation in leadership activities with the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, contributing to standards and professional development in the field.
Curriculum Vitae
Academic record, publications, and professional history.
The full CV includes teaching, clinical, research, and leadership history. A description of therapeutic services is available as a separate document.