THE  MAKING OF A COUNSELOR

As counseling students become interns, then supervisees and finally fully licensed professionals, they go through a number of developmental stages. Understanding these stages is important for both supervisees and their supervisors. Different theoretical models of supervision have unique ways of classifying these stages. In the lead article in the January 2004 issue of the AMHCA Advocate, authors Lisa Erickson and Lisa Mayfield, borrowing from the work of Cal Stoltenberg and Ursula Delworth, term these stages hatching, matching and dispatching.

  The hatching stage is the time when professional identity is developed and the practice and politics of mental health are learned. Counselors in this stage tend to have both a lot of enthusiasm and anxiety. From time to time they may feel ineffective and overwhelmed. Their concern with doing the “right” thing may cause them to approach the counseling session with an agenda rather than allowing the client’s needs and issues to shape the agenda. They tend to be client-focused, and may not have developed the skill of looking at their own role in a session. They may find confrontation difficult. Supervisors of hatching counselors find that their supervisees often look to them for direction, may take risks out of inexperience, and may not yet be able to see how ethical issues actually play out in the counseling process.

  Suggestions proposed by Erickson and Mayfield to help counselors negotiate the hatching stage are: 1) find the support of a supervisor or mentor, join professional organizations and consult with peers, 2) recognize your limitations, 3) do everything you can to keep learning.

  The matching stage is so named because it is a time when the counselor seeks to find a match between the profession and their own goals and beliefs. Having successfully negotiated the hatching stage, they may become discouraged or disillusioned as they struggle with the realities of clinical practice. As their diagnostic skills improve and they move beyond a “cookbook” approach to their clients. They are better able to be attuned to the nuances of ethical issues and cultural implications, and are less likely to ascribe to a single theoretical orientation. Supervisors of matching stage counselors may find that they challenge their supervisors more and may have a harder time asking for and accepting suggestions as they struggle to develop their own clinical style and autonomy.

  For matching stage counselors Erickson and Mayfield offer the following advice: 1) seek broader experiences and diversity in your client population, 2) clarify your own issues and determine if they are best worked through in clinical supervision or your own counseling, and 3) continue to learn, especially from clinicians who have worked through this stage themselves.

Dispatching, in this model, refers to sharing information and the efficiency of a job well-done. Dispatching stage counselors are confident in their clinical skills, comfortable with their limitations, and tend to be more flexible and client-focused. They have developed their own style of practice and have figured out how to stay motivated over time. Erickson and Mayfield strongly feel that the dispatching stage is the time for counselors to share their wisdom, and they advocate: 1) give back to the profession by mentoring, supervising and giving of your time and wisdom to professional organizations, 2) express yourself by teaching, writing and consulting in order to share your professional wisdom, and 3) plan for the next stage of your life and how you will enjoy it