Chapter 4-Who Are the Learners? Phases of Counselor Development

Question 1

RE: Rønnestad and Skovholt, what 4 themes are especially relevant in counselor education?

Answer 1

1. Move from greater externality to greater internality
2. Be reflective and committed to learning.
3. Understand presence and role of affect
4. Counselors’ personal lives are a major source of learning and support for professional work.

Question 2

Define constructive knowing

Answer 2

Thinkers see approximation as the goal, not the precision of an absolute truth

Question 3

What guidelines (Ch. 3) are useful for increasing internality?

Answer 3

Guidelines 2 (varying structure) and 5 (valuing approximation)

Question 4

What types of affect might beginning counselor students experience?

Answer 4

1. Anxiety

2. Counselors’ strong emotional responses to professional elders.

Question 5

In counseling, what are fruitful outcomes of intense personal experiences?

Answer 5

1. Increased ability to understand and relate to clients
2. Increased tolerance and patience
3. Heightened credibility as models
4. Greater awareness of what is effective helping

Question 6

What is the PTCD model?

Answer 6

Qualitative empirical study of 100 counselors at different levels of experience.
By Rønnestad and Skovholt (2003)

Question 7

What did Rønnestad and Skovholt (2003) concluded about positive development?

Answer 7

It is not automatic.
“Continuous reflection is a prerequisite for optimal learning and professional development at all levels of experience”
This distinguishes high-functioning students and counselors from stagnant counselors.

Question 8

What are the four early phases of counselor development?

Answer 8

1. Lay Helper
2. Beginning Student
3. Advanced Student
4. Novice Professional.

Question 9

Define Lay Helper.

Answer 9

1. No professional training
2. May have helped friend/family in the past
3. Rely on whatever commonsense understandings they have about helping others.

Question 10

Lay Helpers usually have four ways of helping:

Answer 10

1. Define the problem quickly,
2. Provide strong emotional support
3. Provide sympathy, in contrast to empathy
4. Give advice based on own experience

Question 11

What are concerns about Lay Helpers in counseling?

Answer 11

1. May blur boundaries
2. Overly identify with clients
3. Overly involved in fixing clients.

Question 12

Beginning Students demonstrate two seemingly contradictory impulses:

Answer 12

1. Enthusiasm for the new venture

2. Intimidation about the complex tasks of professional counseling

Question 13

What is a characteristic in the Beginning Student phase?

Answer 13

Self-focus

Can hardly pay attention to clients, because they are so focused on their own concerns about responding “correctly”

Question 14

What is another characteristic in the Beginning Student phase?

Answer 14

Pleasing the client

Want to please their clients with their work. They want clients to like them.

Question 15

What can counselor educators do to support and challenge learners in the Beginning Student phase?

Answer 15

Keep in mind themes of structure, modeling, and feedback.

Question 16

In the Beginning Student phase, what dimension do students emulate towards their instructors?

Answer 16

“True believer” phase
Eager to emulate and imitate models in the field
May adopt a temporary counseling persona of counselor idol

Question 17

What other tasks must be developed in the Beginning Student phase?

Answer 17

Take an open, self-reflective stance.

Avoid defensiveness

Question 18

How can instructors counter the Beginning Student’s inclinations to look good?

Answer 18

1. Provide a nonhostile learning environment
2. Give students multiple chances to succeed
3. Offer feedback between attempts

Question 19

What are 4 themes that emerge during the Advanced Student Phase?

Answer 19

1. feelings of vulnerability versus emerging confidence
2. growing internality versus the need for external guidance
3. handling ambiguity
4. setting boundaries

Question 20

What are another 4 themes that emerge during the Advanced Student Phase?

Answer 20

5. having inadequate conceptual maps
6. disillusionment
7. orientation to a counseling theory
8. need for intensive supervision theory
   .

Question 21

RE: Advanced Student Phase, describe vulnerability vs. confidence.

Answer 21

Counselor’s ability to feel vulnerable and to continue to learn while trying expertly to meet client needs
Need to balance autonomy and dependence

Question 22

In the Advanced Student Phase, how can supervisors alleviate the student’s desire to only show the “good?”

Answer 22

Provide a safe environment.

Question 23

In the Advanced Student Phase, how can supervisors support students with Growing internality versus the need for external guidance?

Answer 23

1. Provide opportunities for observation of other practitioners
2. Encourage students to attend conference presentations
3. Offer students written guides for practice.

Question 24

What student qualities demonstrate that the Advanced Student phase is a time of self-exploration?

Answer 24

Students more readily:

reflect on the influence of their own personalities on the work, their counter transferences and any defensiveness.

Question 25

In the Advanced Student Phase, how can supervisors facilitate students’ reflectiveness (metacognition)?

Answer 25

1. Encourage students to openly share doubts. 2. Probe for counselor affect and motivation. 3. Encourage reflective journaling. 4. Supervisors model reflection, questioning, and interpretation

Question 26

In the Advanced Student Phase, how must new counselors handle ambiguity?

Answer 26

trust hunches and other partially formed emotional promptings in order to act wisely.

Question 27

How can supervisors help students to handle ambiguity?

Answer 27

1. Modeling and teaching art of ambiguity | 2. Offer interns close, moment-to-moment supervision

Question 28

In the Advanced Student Phase, how can counselors learn more about setting boundaries?

Answer 28

Practice cycle of caring : 1. Empathically joining with clients, 2. Challenge while supporting clients 3. Separating again and again from each client.

Question 29

How can counselor educators help students in setting boundaries?

Answer 29

Help students be alert to their own thoughts and feelings | Catch themselves when being over-or underinvolved.

Question 30

In the Advanced Student Phase, what is a good analogy for having inadequate conceptual maps?

Answer 30

novice canoeist who suddenly encounters whitewater rapids. The novice must somehow remain collected while wanting to panic.

Question 31

How can supervisors help counselors who are struggling with having inadequate conceptual maps?

Answer 31

1. Go to class empathic responding, asking questions 2. five-stage structure for interview (Ivey) 3. Learn through self-reflection and supervision. * *The student just has to go through it!**

Question 32

How else can supervisors help counselors who are struggling with having inadequate conceptual maps?

Answer 32

1. Give less intense cases 2. Give some conceptual maps on how to manage sessions 3. Have strong, close supervision.

Question 33

In the Advanced Student Phase, how is disullusionment described?

Answer 33

Expecting too much | Feeling frustrated when clients are stuck or stagnate

Question 34

How else can supervisors help counselors With disillusionment?

Answer 34

Note: 1. clients’ momentary insights 2. Exceptions to previous behavior 3. Avoidance of negative experiences *Remind counselors of overall positive effects of counseling

Question 35

In the Advanced Student Phase, what is meant by Orientation to a counseling theory?

Answer 35

Students must deal with the important question of a guiding theory.

Question 36

Rønnestad and Skovholt found that counselors take one of four orientations toward counseling theory-what are they?

Answer 36

(1) commitment to one theory but open to others, (2) making serial attachments to theories, (3) being laissez-faire with no commitment to theory, (4) being a “true believer” who fiercely defends one approach while rejecting others.

Question 37

Which orientations are associated with higher-quality counselor-client relationships?

Answer 37

Commitment to one theory with openness and serial attachment tendencies

Question 38

How might supervisors help counselors who are more oriented towards laissez-far or true believer theories?

Answer 38

1. Laissez-fare-ask Student to commit to 1 theory for the semester 2. True believer-challenge student’s assumptions about this one theory 3. Group supervision that encourages peers to provide feedback and varied ideas

Question 39

In the Advanced Student Phase, what is important about Need for intensive supervision and training?

Answer 39

1. Help counselor not become stagnant 2. Leave training with a sense of “faking it.” 3. Supervisors are affirming and express growth in the counselor.

Question 40

What are 5 themes Skovholt and Rønnestad (2003) found in the Novice Professional phase?

Answer 40

1. need for further learning 2. finding one’s own style 3. making a readjustment 4. learning to set boundaries 5. desire for mentoring.

Question 41

In the Novice Professional phase, what do counselors learn about the need for further learning?

Answer 41

1. Their current skills do not work with all clients and issues. 2. They realize lack of expertise from protocols to specific psychological issues.

Question 42

In the Novice Professional phase, what is meant by finding one’s own style?

Answer 42

They can find their own combinations of informality, verbosity, calmness, liveliness, humor, seriousness, emotionality, or intellectuality, as examples.

Question 43

In the Novice Professional phase, what is meant by making a readjustment?

Answer 43

Making a change in work environment if there is a mismatch between the requirements of counseling work and the novice’s personality

Question 44

How might supervisors help counselors who may need to make a readjustment?

Answer 44

Help them explore work environments that best match their capacities, personality, or interests.

Question 45

In the Novice Professional phase, what is meant by learning to set boundaries?

Answer 45

1. Counselors recognize that they are not solely responsible for client improvement. 2. Counselors tighten their boundaries.