Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Rhode Island, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-150).

Theses (Ed.S.)--Marshall University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains iv, 28 p. Bibliography: p. 18-19.

Thesis (Spec. Ed.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Psychology, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], iii, 32 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 25-27).

Thesis (Ed. D)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Psychology, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-21).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (July 17, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis, PlanA (Ed.Spec.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2006. / Title from title page screen, viewed on May 3, 2007. Dissertation Committee: Karla Doepke (chair), Kathy Hoff, Adena Meyers, Dawn McBride, Jeffery Bakken. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-79) and abstract. Also available in print.

The theoretical component of professional training for counselling psychologists is recognised, if not assumed, to be important by those in the field. Currently, several models of therapy are taught to trainees, each with its own theoretical approach to understanding and working in the therapeutic setting. This study considered the helpfulness of theory in practice and explored this with the research question ‘how do trainees make sense of their emotional responses to clients in practice, and what is the impact of theory on the way they make sense of this experience’. Twelve counselling psychologists in the final stages of training participated in semi-structured interviews with the researcher. A grounded theory analysis found eight categories in total. The overarching category, ‘the trainee’s relationship with theory’, indicated that theoretical learning was a social process that became incorporated into trainees’ developing professional identities, and that it evolved during the course of their training. The impacts of theory were found to be both helpful and problematic, and identifiable in four categories: ‘theory reveals the trainee’s experience’, ‘theory conceals the trainee’s experience’, ‘theory raises uncertainty in the trainee’, and, ‘the trainee’s inability to perceive the impact of theory’. The remaining three categories ‘the trainee’s personal and professional development’, ‘the nature of the trainee’s relationships’, and ‘relieving the impact of the trainee’s experience’ described factors influencing trainees’ relationship with theory, and the degree to which each impact category was experienced. The research findings open dialogue about: the disadvantages (alongside the advantages) of using one’s reflective practice. These implications are discussed.

Previous studies have suggested that becoming a counsellor takes place according to stages and that development can be explained through the achievement of specified tasks. The professional training process is also understood to give rise to considerable anxiety with this traditionally conceptualised as a predominately negative experience hindering the learning process. The aims of the current study were: 1) to understand and identify how counselling psychology trainees make sense of and experience their development in becoming counselling psychologists, 2) to understand how anxiety is implicated in trainees’ growth and development into becoming counselling psychologists, and 3) through the application of an empirical existential phenomenological framework to promote an alternative perspective to the dominant medical model in relation to anxiety and the meaning attached to this experience in the process of becoming a counselling psychologist. Five trainee counselling psychologists and two recently qualified counselling psychologists were interviewed for this research project. The phenomenological analysis identified situated structural descriptions with the themes from these individual accounts forming the basis of a general structural description of the phenomenon of anxiety in becoming a counselling psychologist. By means of this existential phenomenological analysis, the multiple meanings attached to the experience of becoming with reference to anxiety were investigated. Two important findings emerged namely; 1) anxiety was not a negative, debilitating process for the trainees and 2) that counselling psychology’s pluralist theoretical affiliations whilst anxiety provoking contributed to the depth of transformation experienced by trainees. By adopting a pluralistic stance ambiguity was found to be prevalent in the experience of anxiety; this opened up the possibilities for becoming for this group of trainees. Therefore a non