TPC-Journal-V2-Issue3

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 3 216 deeper in session, their unsuccessful attempts to explore clients’ feelings, and clients keeping the content at a surface level, rather than emotional. Alex experienced her client’s avoidance of processing emotion: I think the same thing that’s important is that there are things that he’s not talking about, mainly his feelings, and then when I did ask him I think directly, like “how does smoking make you feel” or “tell me about the anxiety or something,” he went to how does it physically make me feel, which brings up even more to me that whole, “you’re not experiencing emotions very much.” Many CITs also reflected on the emotional climate in the room and found it important that they elicited emotions from clients, and that their clients and sometimes even the CITs experienced emotions in session. Kerry was struck by a client’s release of emotion in session: I would absolutely have to say I believe that it was…the release. It was like when she became emotional it was like she was, it was her finally getting a chance to release these things and guessing I think that she kind of had to hold these feelings in for quite some time so being okay with letting them out and I imagine that was probably a great feeling. It was clear from the interviews that CITs found emotion, or the lack of emotion, as critical in counseling. Goals Some CITs experienced goals as a meaningful theme in counseling. Setting goals, making a plan, and assigning homework were important to these CITs. Sue picked up on her client’s desire to be challenged and used this opportunity to challenge the client with a homework assignment that was directly related to the client’s goal of speaking up in class more often: So there was an opportunity at the end for me to, she said “I want to be challenged, I want my teacher to call on me” and I said, “well, I would like to challenge you to step a little outside of your comfort zone and speak up just one time in class and, you know, if you have time jot down how it felt before and during, after, your thoughts about it”…we kind of concluded that next week we would focus on what that experience was like. Setting goals is one of the more concrete meaningful happenings in session that appealed to some CITs. Transference and Counter Transference CITs dealt with some transference and counter-transference in session as well that stood out to them. Kerry describes the meaningfulness of this in session: There was some transference there with her issues with her father are really similar to issues I have with mine, so it was something that I was kind of battling myself and so, yeah, it was emotional for both of us. CITs experienced clients reminding them of people in their own lives, sometimes of parts of themselves, and other times noticed that they were representing someone else for the client. CIT Negotiating the Counseling Process and their Role CITs often reflected on their own performance in session, clearly attempting to negotiate the counseling process and their role in it. CITs described how they felt the sessions had gone; how well they felt they performed, and things they wished they would have done differently. They reflected on their own learning process of when to give more time to certain things, when to elicit more from clients, when to step in, what to do when clients want them to have answers, how to be more present, and how to manage their own feelings in session, among other things. Kerry describes the journey of growing as a counselor through this session: I think today’s session was really important for not only the client, but for me. Like I was telling my supervisor going in that there was a different feeling with this client and I think today I learned that all clients have different feelings, and that I think I finally came to the realization that they’re all unique and all different and to try to fit so many into the same circle if you will, but it’s just impossible. So, I think it was good for me and it was, as much as progress as the client made, I probably made more as a counselor.