The journey towards becoming a counselling psychologist, in South Africa, includes the completion a 12 month internship. The internship year holds many challenges and demands for novice professionals and aims to assist them in making the transition from student to professional. This study aims to explore the subjective experiences of intern counselling psychologists and the critical incidents which assist them in making this transition. In addition, it aims to identify experiences impacting on the interns’ professional development and professional identity. Three registered counselling psychologists, who completed their internship at a South African university counselling centre within the last year, were recruited and participated in individual interviews. These interviews were semi-structured and followed the Critical Incident Technique method. Each interview was voice recorded and transcribed. The data collected was analysed using thematic content analysis. As the research design is qualitative, using a phenomenological approach, the focus is on presenting information-rich and detailed descriptions of participants “lived” experiences of their internship year. It attempts to understand significant incidents or events which influenced the participants’ professional and personal development as they navigate through this ambiguous period to become independent and ethical practitioners. Four predominant themes emerged from the data collected, which include a discussion pertaining to professional boundaries and limitations, learning within the internship environment, the effects of professional and personal support and, lastly, the transition from dependent to independent professional functioning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:3265 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Teixeira, Beverley |
| Publisher | Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Psychology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MA |
| Format | 135 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Teixeira, Beverley |
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