TPC Journal-Vol 10- Issue 2-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 2 185 Design We acquired our national sample of licensed clinical participants using the clinician database on the Psychology Today website. Specifically, we conducted a search of clinicians with experience addressing a general clinical issue (i.e., anxiety) within each of the 50 states. We identified the names of the first 13 licensed clinicians from each state and searched the internet for their email addresses. If an email address could not be found, we replaced this clinician with the next licensed clinician listed on the Psychology Today website for that particular state. We continued this process until we had names and email addresses for 13 licensed clinicians from each state, yielding 650 potential participants. We calculated a desired sample of 650 given that researchers purported an average response rate of 15.7% for online research surveys sent to professional counselors in the “other” category (members of state-level associations), which most closely reflected our sample (Poynton et al., 2019). After receiving approval from the Institutional Review Board, we emailed the questionnaire link utilizing the Qualtrics software program to the 650 potential participants. Fifty-two emails were undeliverable, resulting in 598 emails sent. We sent participants three reminder emails over the course of three weeks. We received 102 questionnaires (17.1% response rate) from our national sample of licensed clinicians. After removing eight unfinished questionnaires, our final sample consisted of 94 participants (adjusted response rate = 15.7%). Results To answer our research questions regarding licensed clinicians’ experiences with client NSSI, we assessed descriptive data resulting from responses to our questionnaire. The data fell into six broad categories: (a) frequency of NSSI in clinical work, (b) descriptions of clients who self-injure, (c) assessment of NSSI, (d) role of the internet, (e) clinicians’ beliefs about NSSI as an addiction and formal diagnosis, and (f) NSSI-related training and perceived competence. Frequency of NSSI in Clinical Work We first sought to examine how frequently licensed clinicians worked with clients who self-injured. Specifically, we asked our sample how often in the totality of their clinical work they addressed client NSSI. Results indicated that only two (2.1%) clinicians had never worked with a client reporting NSSI, 37 (39.4%) addressed NSSI rarely (about 10% of the time), 33 (35.1%) addressed NSSI occasionally (about 30% of the time), 13 (13.8%) addressed NSSI a moderate amount (about 50% of the time), five (5.3%) addressed NSSI frequently (about 70% of the time), and four (4.3%) addressed NSSI almost always (about 90% of the time). Thus, among a national sample of 94 licensed clinicians, 92 (97.9%) reported working with NSSI at some point in their careers, with 55 (58.5%) reporting that they addressed NSSI 30% of the time or more. We also assessed frequency of NSSI among clients in the past year. Only one (1.1%) clinician reported not having self-injuring clients in the previous 12 months. Fifty-one (54.3%) clinicians worked with 1–5 clients who self-injured, 24 (25.5%) worked with 6–10 clients who self-injured, six (6.4%) worked with 11–15 clients who self-injured, and nine (9.6%) worked with more than 15 clients who self-injured. Three (3.2%) participants did not respond to this item. Descriptions of Clients Who Self-Injure We then examined clinicians’ descriptions of clients who reported NSSI. Specifically, we inquired about age, gender, race, and method of self-harm by asking clinicians what portion of their clients who self-injured fell into various categories (Table 1). Sixty-one (64.9%) clinicians reported that