Reflections on Clinical Counselling: A Journey of Learning and Growth

Learning and Practicing as a Counselling Intern

1.Learning a lot on how to practice being a counsellor in a clinical setting has not been an easy journey. It has been a long journey of perseverance and hard work. Every morning I have to remind myself of my goal (to be a counsellor) and treat my role as an intern as a paid job. I over the past six months of internship obtained a board range of experience in psychotherapy. At the site I learned and was able to use a board range of modalities such as Client centred approach, CPT, CBT and SFT. Thus, I have so far got to explore various modalities and ways of working in therapy. This is also helping me in determining which one fits with my individual style, though I know it is going to take a good couple of years before actually settling for a fixed way of working.

2.Internship has offered a unique opportunity for experimentation and growth through failures and success in counselling sessions.

3.Supervision/Group supervision has provided many rich learning experiences like case studies to the interns (4 of us from Yorkville University) at the site to not only provide the right learning environment but also to help us to prepare and reflect on our practice and thereby prepare us for success.

4.Supervision has helped me to gain clarity on what areas need to be looked into to fill the gaps and achievements accomplished so far.

5.Supervision also has given me the opportunity to try out different approaches under the guidance of supervisors who are helpful in averting disasters. 

6.In addition to individual psychotherapy, I was able to gain exposure to short- and long-term individual psychotherapy, case management and crisis intervention, group therapy and soon my supervisor mentioned that he would give us family/couples to counsel, for which we have received training in the prepare and enrich program. Hoping that I will be lucky enough to get male/children as clients. The long-term therapy is helping me to practice core psychotherapy skills

7.I have also lucky to gain an experience first-hand about the impact of socio-economic issues on professional practice and work with the specialty population like the domestic violence clients.

8.From my internship I also got to see the impact the pandemic has had on the counselling profession with many losing their jobs and insurance. Our once busy office now is a quiet deserted place with most asking for zoom sessions to attend therapy in the comfort of their home and thereby save on gas and time. The trend I noticed is more towards short-term or time limited therapy.

My long-term client has helped me to believe in myself as she had planned to take ten sessions and found me as a good therapist who knows her stuff and decided to continue much longer than the intended time as mentioned b her that one of the factors is she feels highly motivated to attend therapy.

9.Individual counselling has not only helped me to reach the beginners functioning level in the core competencies and in polishing my counselling. Individual counseling has also helped me in building skills such as 1. Establishing a sound working relationship 2. Identify the problem that has brought the client to therapy 3. Ongoing evaluation of therapy work 4. Termination

10.The biggest challenge for me was being aware of my personal biases as I brought in a lifetime of my previous experiences.

11.SELF CARE- to increase self-compassion and reduce psychological distress it was essential for me to take care of myself throughout the MACP program. In always looking to see how to balance work and life. Sharing assignment deadlines, deliberately choosing to create spontaneous catch ups on chat group to consumption of good snacks, watching favorite movies/soap operas, mindfulness walks rather than mind full walks.