Practicum Learnings for Counseling and Art Therapy Students: the Shared and the Particular
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Practicum Learnings for Counseling and Art Therapy Students: the Shared and the Particular Theresa Van Lith 1 & Lorelei Voronin 1
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Practicum experience in counseling and therapy training can be an anxiety-inducing time as students begin to apply their acquired theoretical knowledge. On-site supervisors closely monitor students’ development by making use of example-based involvements to provide valuable insights and learning opportunities. This paper examines the findings from a pragmatic inquiry, where seven on-site supervisors were interviewed about their experiences supervising counseling and art therapy practicum students. By using qualitative analysis, the authors were able to elicit themes that demonstrated important qualities for all counseling and therapy students during this learning stage, as well as for art therapy students in particular. Keywords Professional development . Counseling . Art therapy . Practicum . Qualitative inquiry
Introduction Becoming a mental health professional involves an integration of expertise, skills, and attitudes with one’s personal values and interests (Ducheny et al. 1997). Training to be a professional not only requires learning specific expertise, but also involves acquiring a demonstrative and interpersonal skill-set in order to know how to be and act in a specialized manner. Much research has explored counselor and therapist development. For example, previous studies (e.g., Furr and Carroll 2003; Hill et al. 2007; Koltz and Champe 2010) have explored the practicum experience from the student perspective, whereby critical incidents were identified as key moments that helped to inform the students’ professional identity. The perspective of the educator has also been used to provide validation to students needing reassurance and direction during their developmental process (e.g., Hazler and Kottler 2005; McNiff 1986; Stoltenberg et al. 1998).
* Theresa Van Lith [email protected]
1
Department of Art Education, Florida State University, William Johnston building, 143 Honors Way, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1231, USA
Int J Adv Counselling
To explore common struggles for beginning counselors and therapists, Rønnestad and Skovholt (2003) identified how students undertake the transition from a lay helper phase to a beginning student phase, and then to an advanced student phase during their training. Notable obstacles were found to include performance anxiety, feelings of being scrutinized by professional gatekeepers, impermeable or unbounded emotional boundaries, a sense of being fragile and incomplete as a practitioner, insufficient conceptual maps, unreachable expectations, and a feeling of neediness for mentors. These findings led Skovholt and Rønnestad to conclude, that the Bthe novice journey can be arduous^ (p. 45), where students fluctuate through periods of uncertainty and feelings of being a fraud.
Training Practices for Art Therapists Training toward becoming an art therapist is similar to more general counseling
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