This qualitative study drew from Thematic Analysis, inspired by Grounded Theory, to explore how counselling students completing their internship manage their feelings of incompetence. Four master’s level counselling students from three different masters counselling programs in Ontario, Canada were interviewed using a semi-structure interview protocol to gain an in-depth understanding of how they experienced and managed FOI during their internship. Twenty-nine subthemes emerged, which were further categorized into four over arching main themes: (1) experience of FOI, which included eight subthemes; (2) effects of FOI, which included eight subthemes; (3) management of FOI, which included six subthemes; and (4) seeking supports for FOI, which included eight subthemes. The FOI that counsellors-in-training experience can directly impact their clients and the implications of this study related to counselling pedagogy and supervision are discussed.

Self-care is necessary for psychotherapists to prevent burnout and to provide ethical services for clients. Counselling students often recognize the need for self-care, but neglect to implement it, preventing them from building the necessary practices to endure hardships related to practicing psychotherapy. Previous research, such as Butler and colleague’s work (2017), has examined the importance of self-care in counselling education, but has not examined how it is applied in practice. Therefore, this project’s research questions included: 1) How do novice therapists engage in professional self-care? 2) How do novice therapists bridge the gap between conceptual knowledge and practice of professional self-care? 3) What are the barriers to self-care? Thematic Analysis (TA) was used to distil meaning from common experiences of participants. Four psychotherapists with an average of 1.5 years of experience were interviewed using an in-depth semi-structured interview protocol. Eighteen subthemes were generated from the data, further categorized under four themes: (1) obstacles to self-care; (2) work-life balance; (3) pathways to self-care; and (4) effects of self-care. Implications of this research include structured self-reflection in counsellor training programs, integration of flexibility and self-care provisions in workplace cultures, and a strong policy emphasis on the need for counsellor self-care and improving professional guidelines to allow for counsellor self-care practices.

The use of audio and videotape recordings in counsellor education for the purpose of training and supervision is controversial. Although recordings give counsellors and supervisors direct access to the counselling session and therefore the skills of the counsellor, a number of concerns have been recorded both in early research (Betcher & Zinberg, 1988; Frankel, 1971; Gelso, 1973; Goldstein, 1988; Lamb & Mahl, 1956; Niland, 1971; Van Atta, 1969) and more recently in counsellors’ correspondence to the NZAC Newsletter (Anonymous, 2006; Grant, 2006) regarding the effects on counsellors, clients and on the counselling process itself. There is a scarcity of current research on whether or not recording of counselling or therapeutic interviews actually interferes with the counselling process. The few empirical studies of the effects of recording are inconsistent in their findings and their methodological flaws preclude meaningful interpretation of the literature as a whole (Goldstein, 1988). This qualitative research study focuses on one aspect of recording counselling interviews; the perceptions of counselling students. Thirteen counselling students enrolled on counsellor education programmes at five tertiary educational settings in Auckland and Christchurch, New Zealand participated in interviews. They indicated that they perceived the process of recording to be anxiety promoting, initially having an effect on their ability to be completely present in the counselling interview. They also reported that recording was extremely beneficial to the development of effective counselling skills. Counsellors perceived the process of recording to be a potential threat to the developing relationship between counsellor and client but many were able to manage this concern by establishing trust and rapport before introducing recording. The majority of the student counsellors perceived that they became more confident with the process over time, moving from a state of anxiety in initial recordings to a more relaxed style with practice. This has implications for future practice and for early introduction to frequent recording in counsellor education programmes.

This project addresses the promotion of role-related self-compassion (SC) in psychotherapists as part of their professional development and maintenance. There is evidence that therapists who are more self-compassionate are better-protected from emotional burnout (Beaumont et al., 2016), suggesting that self-compassion become part of therapist education(Nelson et al., 2018), but there is a lack of research regarding how this role-related selfcompassion is addressed by supervisors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 clinical supervisors in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. Thematic analysis (TA) derived 5 main themes, including Participants’ Definitions of SC, Supervisee struggles leading participants to address SC in supervision Participants’ approaches to addressing SC with supervisees, Institutional structures addressing self-care, self-compassion, and Challenges associated with addressing SC in supervision. Results suggest that participants viewed self-compassion as an important component of therapist self-care, and employed a number of direct and indirect methods to address and encourage it with supervisees. Implications for practice and training are included.

This study investigates the effects that becoming and being a professional counsellor, including training and professional practice, can have on one’s personal life. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to a base of research literature that is starting to form on the personal lives of counsellors. Qualitative methodology and thematic analysis were chosen for this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six professional counsellors, asking them how their training and professional practice has affected their personal lives. Findings revealed participants experienced mostly positive effects, which impacted their personal lives in a variety of ways and in a range of areas. It is suggested that the research be used as part of counsellor training and support programs, as well as to inspire future research on how the profession of counselling psychology comes to affect the professionals engaged with this work.