TPC-Journal-V5-Issue1

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 1 153 Many counselors view counselor identity development as a process (Auxier et al., 2003; Brott & Myers, 1999) that results in congruency between personal and professional worldviews (Reisetter et al., 2004), or consider it an equal combination of professional (e.g., roles, decisions, ethics) and personal selves (e.g., values, morals, perceptions; Auxier et al., 2003). This view suggests that personal and professional development are not mutually exclusive and are just as much interrelated as dependent concepts. Research on counselor professional identity development has examined areas such as personal or professional fit (Woodside, Oberman, Cole, & Carruth, 2007), critical incidents experienced by counselors- in-training (CITs; Howard, Inman, & Altman, 2006), career concerns of CITs (Busacca & Wester, 2006), evaluation of personal and professional development (Donati & Watt, 2005; Hensley, Smith, & Thompson, 2003; Lamadue & Duffey, 1999), and ways for counselor educators to address problematic behavior of trainees (Bhat, 2005; Gaubatz & Vera, 2002; McAdams & Foster, 2007; McAdams, Foster, & Ward, 2007). Furthermore, recent research has provided counselor educators with a model for professional identity development, specifying transformational tasks such as “finding a personal definition of counseling, internalizing responsibility for professional growth, and developing a systemic identity necessary for professional identity development” (Gibson, Dollarhide, & Moss, 2010, p. 21). According to the transformational tasks theory proposed by Gibson et al. (2010), change happens in relation to a “transformational process across time and experience” (p. 28). From these transformational experiences, CITs evolve from reliance on external authorities (i.e., supervisors and teachers) to provide learning experiences to a position of self-validation (i.e., integrated personal and professional identity), resulting in a more internalized view of counseling and the ability to personalize understanding of experiences. The concept of counselor development evolving across time in stages and encompassing a spectrum of elements also is reflected in Skovholt & R ø nnestad’s (1996) research, which suggests that counselor development explains a complex interplay between the personal and professional realms over the career span. The incorporation of transformational learning experiences in counselor training might significantly impact both personal and professional development of CITs. The importance of a more internalized view of counseling and the ability to self-reflect (Skovholt & R ø nnestad, 1996) constitute significant distinctions between counselors who continue to develop versus counselors who face professional burnout and stagnation. Furthermore, lack of reflection also has been shown to have significant impact on selecting intervention strategies (McAuliffe, Eriksen, & Associates, 2002). However, few researchers have examined pedagogical methods used to enhance CITs’ level of professional development. As a result, there is a dearth of literature exploring strategies to incorporate student self-reflective experiences into counselor education in order to influence professional identity development. Counselor educators play a significant role (Griffin, 1993; Sheeley, 1986; VanZandt, 1990; Weiss, 1981) and are a key factor in counselor personal and professional development (Gibson et al., 2010; Oliver, Moore, Schoen, & Scarmon, 1989; Weiss, 1981) through the facilitation of tasks that will increase opportunities for CITs to self-evaluate, self-motivate and self-locate. Transformational learning experiences for counselor training can be described as expressive techniques or experiential activities that facilitate CITs’ ability to express feelings and meanings related to life issues (O’Brien, 2008). Experiential activities in counselor training are applied to creative approaches in the classroom as well as in individual and group supervision (Newsome, Henderson, & Veach, 2005; Sommer & Cox, 2003; ter Maat & Bowman, 2001; Waliski, 2009; Wilkins, 1995). The inclusion of expressive arts in training assists CITs with reframing and deepening their understanding of experience (Bradley, Whiting, Hendricks, Parr, & Jones, 2008) and enhances the development of personal awareness skills (Newsome et al., 2005), functions that