570 The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 4 The areas for bracketing were identified prior to the interviews and consisted primarily of the delineation of the presuppositions and assumptions of the research team in order to avoid hindering the capacity of the team to listen to the participants. The actual bracketing was performed during the analysis stage by making notations of areas where presuppositions and assumptions might influence interpretation. Participants were not asked to bracket their assumptions. Direct quotes were heavily relied upon in the analysis to assure that the voices of the participants were heard throughout the process. An expert reviewer, a counselor educator not involved in the study, audited the results (Creswell, 2014; Patton, 2015), providing the team with feedback. Last, member checking was used to ascertain that we had not misunderstood or used participant statements out of context. Results The analysis yielded four themes: importance of gatekeeping, behind the curtain, understandings vary by developmental level, and uneven responses to experiential learning. Pseudonyms used during data collection were replaced with participant numbers for reporting purposes. Importance of Gatekeeping The theme importance of gatekeeping describes the valuing of gatekeeping, remediation, and dispositional assessment by participants. Across all participants, gatekeeping and related processes were perceived as critically important. The rationale for valuing gatekeeping varied from participant to participant, with most offering more than one justification. Five participants positioned their responses within the professional mandate to protect the public. P1 stated: I learned that some of my experiences as a counselor really influenced the importance that I put on gatekeeping . . . I’ve been doing counseling . . . so I had exposure to what it looks like when counselors in the field aren’t well suited or act from their own personal needs. Two participants reflected that the protection of the public was particularly important because of the attraction of emotionally wounded individuals to the profession. As stated by P2: [Gatekeeping and remediation] . . . are extremely important because people oftentimes I find go into the counseling field for the wrong reasons. Whether it’s a personal history with mental health issues and they’re trying to solve their own issues or because. . . maybe they like the power differential that is created in a helping relationship . . . they want to somehow take advantage. Protecting counseling programs, universities, and the profession was also expressed as a reason for valuing gatekeeping. P3 stated: “The counseling profession is our own and needs to be protected,” later adding, “Despite how difficult it can be, if warranted, I want to play hardball to protect my students, other faculty, alumni, program, and the profession.” Behind the Curtain Eight of the nine participants reported that they had limited awareness of gatekeeping and related processes in their master’s programs. P4 stated: “I mean, I’m sure we were gate checked in my master’s program, but I don’t really remember anything about it.” Participants discussed the process of learning about gatekeeping after the experience of being unaware of it in their master’s programs,
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