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  • Essay / Therapist and Counselor Training - 2423

    Training to become a therapist or counselor is stressful and involves significant changes in identity, self-knowledge, and confidence. Most of these changes appear to be related to the start of working with clients (Edwards & Patterson, 2012). The internship or clinical experience portion of training as a therapist or counselor is arguably the most important part of the program. It is also one of the most stressful and overwhelming times in a therapist trainee's academic career. Trainees' clinical placements include multiple challenges; developing skills with clients is just one of the challenges new internship students face. They must also begin to navigate their new internship environment, develop new working relationships with supervisors and peers, continue to expand their knowledge of models and theories, as well as confront the influence of personal issues and life challenges as they begin to understand that everything in their lives ultimately influences their therapy with clients (Edwards & Patterson, 2012; Folkes-Skinner, Elliott, & Wheeler, 2010). The Self of the Therapist It is considered inevitable that therapists evaluate and judge problems through the prism of their own worldview, due to the fact that it is impossible to be entirely neutral if a therapist is active in the therapeutic role (Aponte & Winter, 2000). From this perspective, the therapist has a responsibility not only to learn their clinical techniques and models from the academic institution in which they are trained, but also to examine the therapist's self and work to be aware of its own biases and personal issues that have the potential to influence their work. The therapeutic relationship is considered a major component of the professional life of first-year MFT students. Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal, 23(1), 51-61.McCarthy, J., Pfohl, A.H., & Bruno, M. (2009). Help-seeking among counseling trainees: An exploratory study. Journal of Counseling Research & Practice, 1(1), 53-63. McCollum, EE and Gehart, DR (2010). Using mindfulness meditation to teach therapeutic presence to beginning therapists: A qualitative study. Journal of Marital & Family Therapy, 36(3), 347-360.Mehr, KE, Ladany, N., & Caskie, GL (2010). Non-disclosure of supervisory trainees: what don't they tell you?. Research in Counseling and Psychotherapy, 10(2), 103-113.Trepal, H.C., Bailie, J., & Leeth, C. (2010). Critical incidents in internship supervision: points of view of supervisees. Journal of Professional Counseling: Practice, Theory and Research, 38(1), 28-38.