TPC-Journal-V2-Issue3

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 3 219 with them. Carol thought it was important that her CIT invited her to openly talk about her comfort level in their relationship: I think what I felt like was important, is that she kind of stressed the point that she wants me to feel comfortable. Like, if she makes me uncomfortable or says something that I don’t feel comfortable talking about, that just to let her know, you know…I thought that was important to make me, I think it was important for her to let me know that. Another client, Heather, had this to say about an immediate moment where her CIT asked how she felt in the room: “It was strange, but it was meaningful. I remembered it.” Emotion Some clients focused on emotions exhibited in session as important. Clients felt a variety of emotions in session including the following: nervous, anxious, relaxed, exposed, and vulnerable. Ava, when responding about what her CIT may say was most meaningful in their session, reflected on her vulnerability with him: I’m hoping opening up the way I did to him. It’s not very often that I can sit down and talk about issues with a parent, your mom and dad, to open up. To be able to cry in front of him and all of that I kind of hope that makes him realize that “this is important to her, that she is talking to me about it” where I don’t really have anybody else I talk to like that. Reflections on Counseling Clients had much to say about the counseling process in general, coming together in a theme of reflections on counseling. Some clients had expectations about counseling that were either met or not met. Other clients described how they felt about this session and about counseling in general. Still others described the process as odd or different. Wanda, in reflecting on her experience had this to say: That this shouldn’t be a one-time thing; that I, you know, I should probably do it again, you know, in about a year or two, you know…It really makes you question yourself and things like that. So that’s important. I think it’s important to realize, you know, what you do and how you affect people around you and I feel like, you know, boy, couldn’t everybody just use that, you know? Many similarities, as well as some differences, emerged in the themes and subthemes generated of meaningful experiences among CITs and clients in this study. The two perspectives shared the themes Counseling Relationship, Insights, Immediacy, Emotion, and Goals, varying somewhat in the subthemes. Meanwhile, Nonverbals and Transference and Counter Transference were themes specific to the CIT experience. Finally, two themes from the different perspectives, CIT Negotiating the Counseling Process and their Role (CIT theme) and Reflections on Counseling (client theme), seemed to parallel each other. Discussion The results of this qualitative study are significant to furthering our understanding of the counseling process with views from both the client and CIT perspectives. Eliciting both client and counselor perspectives have been shown to help broaden our knowledge of the counseling process (Blow et al., 2009; Elliott & James, 1989). Many themes emerged from both participants’ lenses, and reveal some overlap, as well as some differences among CIT and client themes. Llewelyn’s (1988) work shows that some differences in participant perceptions are to be expected, even when counseling has a positive outcome. All participants were asked about the counseling relationship, and the results add to the depth of what we know about how the relationship is experienced by CITs and clients. Both CITs and clients experienced the counseling relationship as meaningful, which also is supported in the literature (Lietaer, 1992; Lietaer & Neirinck, 1986), and there were similarities in the aspects of the relationship they each found meaningful. Trust and Depth of Understanding were subthemes for both clients and CITs. Singer (2005), when qualitatively examining clients’ perspectives in counseling, also found that clients valued feeling understood by their counselor.