Multiple Factors in the Development of the Expert Counselor and Therapist

By Len Jennings, Michael Goh, T. Skovholt, M. Hanson, Devjani Banerjee-Stevens. 2003

88 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Expertise in counseling and therapy is both desirable and elusive. Increasing our knowledge about expertise in counseling and therapy enhances understanding of the role it plays in our profession. This understanding has the potential to improve the training of counselors and therapists. Yet expertise in counseling and therapy appears to be a multifaceted and dynamic concept needing further definition and description. In this article, we outline challenges faced trying to describe expertise in counseling and therapy and present research-based factors that contribute to developing expertise in counseling and therapy. Important factors include: experience, personal characteristics of the counselor and therapist, cultural competence, and comfort with ambiguity.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f7bfb31d66aec18989fa82a2f45a9c9fd720827