291 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 3 of professional counseling experience post-graduation, and a full-time caseload of at least 60% or more emerging adults (ages 18–29) during their time as a professional counselor. Demographic data for each participant are displayed in Table 1. Pseudonyms are used for each counselor selected for the study to maintain confidentiality (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014), along with their age, gender, race/ethnicity, highest counseling degree, years of experience as a counselor, and the type of work setting. We chose to require 2 years of counseling experience as inclusion criteria given that most states require no less than 2 years of experience to become a fully licensed professional counselor (e.g., Pennsylvania Department of State, 2024), which is a benchmark of demonstrating experience as a professional counselor. We chose not to require that participants hold licensure as a professional counselor, as we hoped to include college counselors in our study, many of whom may not seek licensure as a professional counselor, as many universities do not require counselors to hold licensure to work in counseling centers. We elected to require a full-time caseload of at least 60% of clients currently within the ages of 18–29 years to ensure that the experiences of the counselors working with this age group were substantial enough to provide generalizability. Table 1 Participant Demographics Pseudonym Age Gender Race/Ethnicity Education Total years as a professional counselor Type of practice Judy 30 Female White MA 5 Private practice Lorraine 31 Female White PhD 8 Private practice Peter 48 Male White MA 10 College counseling center Claire 40 Female White MA 16 Private practice Christine 30 Female White MA 5 College counseling center Patricia 48 Female White MA 20 College counseling center Mark 32 Male White PhD 7 College counseling center Theresa 30 Female White MA 5 Outpatient practice agency Emily 39 Female White MA 2 College counseling center Stephen 37 Male Asian MA 7 Community mental health Sarah 27 Female Hispanic MA 3.5 Outpatient agency & private practice Note. N = 11.
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