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The authors evaluated an unfolding case-based approach to a practicum in counseling course infusing crisis, trauma, and disaster preparation for changes in students’ crisis self-efficacy across a semester. The course, informed by constructivist-developmental pedagogy and centered on the unfolding case, resulted in significant increases in students’ crisis self-efficacy.

The researchers examined how suicide-response training received before practicum related to degrees of anxiety and confidence for practicum students regarding the treatment of suicidal clients. Results of 113 surveyed practicum students are discussed, along with implications and suggestions for future research.

In this consensual qualitative research study, the authors explored supervisors' (n= 11) and their supervisees' (n= 31) perceptions of individual, triadic, and group supervision sessions during practicum. Data from supervisor individual interviews and supervisee focus-group interviews revealed several themes regarding the advantages and disadvantages of each supervision modality. Findings suggest the relative place of each modality in terms of goals and impact.

The authors used an intensive single-subject quantitative design to examine cybersupervision of counseling practicum students in a university setting. Five female supervisees volunteered to receive their required weekly supervision online during a 14-week, semester-long counseling practicum. Following a face-to-face orientation meeting, all remaining interactions among the supervisees and with the supervisor occurred electronically. Data were collected about the utility of the synchronous and asynchronous modalities, changes in supervisee competence and confidence during the practicum, and supervisee attitudes about the cybersupervision approach. The findings offered evidence that the web-based modality could be used in similar settings.

Prepracticum service-learning (PPSL) was investigated through a qualitative case study of a counselor education program. Participants were PPSL instructors, coordinators, and alumni of the selected program. As it relates to the counselor education program under study, this article illustrates perceived effects of PPSL on student counselors' overall development and comparisons of PPSL and practicum training. Implications for counselor education are addressed.

The authors attempted to gain an understanding of critical incidents (CIs) from the perspective of novice counselor trainees during their 1st year of supervised clinical practicum. Journals kept by 9 trainees in master's-level counseling programs were qualitatively analyzed using the discovery-oriented research methodology (A. Mahrer, 1988). One hundred fifty-seven CIs emerged in 5 major categories: (a) professional identity, (b) personal reactions, (c) competence, (d) supervision, and (e) philosophy of counseling. Implications of the findings are discussed for counselor development theory and research, as well as counselor training.

Thirteen doctoral students, 7 Caucasians and 6 Hispanics, participated over 3 semesters of practicum/internship in a qualitative research project exploring the experience of becoming supervisors. A follow-up study with 5 different doctoral students confirmed and refined findings 1½ years later. The research team of 2 female faculty members and 1 male research assistant (the authors) identified 6 themes emerging from individual and group interviews with supervisors-in-training regarding the process of becoming a supervisor: (a) learning, (b) supervisee growth, (c) individual uniqueness, (d) reflection, (e) connections, and (f) putting it all together.

The authors investigated the use of student-initiated e-mail as a supplemental modality for supervision. Nineteen students e-mailed their instructors weekly during their 15-week practicum; these e-mails were analyzed across 3 time periods using the categories of the discrimination model (J. M. Bernard, 1979, 1997) and an adaptation of W. Lanning's (1986) professional behavior category. Although patterns of e-mails were similar across time, there was a significant decline in the number of e-mails as the practicum progressed. Significance was found for message focus, with personalization messages and professional behavior/practicum class messages accounting for more than half of the messages across 3 time periods.

The authors discuss the creation and evaluation of a CD-ROM to train and support prepracticum, practicum, and internship site supervisors in a master's-level counselor education program. The authors, from a small, rural, southwestern college, created and distributed a CD-ROM containing video and document resources for this purpose. Small focus groups were then conducted to gather data to measure the CD-ROM's effectiveness. Data showed strong support for the use of CD-ROM technology in providing training of site supervisors. Recommendations are offered to improve future versions of the CD-ROM.

The purpose of the current research was to ascertain program directors' perceptions of the effectiveness of applicant screening measures currently used in counselor education programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs and their perceptions of the effectiveness of measures of graduate student success. The personal interview was identified as the most effective screening measure currently used, and practicum/internship performance was considered the most effective measure of graduate student success.

Prepracticum service-learning is an integral part of the curriculum for counselor education students at a large southwestern university. Service-learning is accomplished by placing novice students in school or community agency settings to acquire early, practical, field-based experience. Activities are more structured and supervised than in an internship or practicum. Analysis indicated that prepracticum service-learning had a positive significant relationship with counselor self-efficacy and a significant negative relationship with student anxiety. However, substantial counseling course work and experience with counseling-related work both had a stronger influence than did prepracticum service-learning, indicating that the latter is more appropriate for novice students.

The authors describe a family counseling practicum that is based on cognitive-developmental theory and uses a Deliberate Psychological Education (DPE) model for developing a curriculum (N. A. Sprinthall & R. Mosher, 1978). Designed to promote the growth and development of adult learners, DPE facilitates learning and the developmental growth of beginning family counselors. A brief review of the origins of the DPE model and its use in counseling settings is followed by a description of the curriculum that has been implemented and refined over the past 10 years in the New Horizons Family Counseling Center at The College of William and Mary.

The authors investigated C. E. Watkins's (1994) supervisor complexity model (SCM). The Psychotherapy Supervisor Development Scale (PSDS; C. E. Watkins, L. J. Schneider, J. Haynes, & R. Nieberding, 1995) was used to ascertain development over a 15-week supervision practicum for 12 doctoral students and to compare their development with 7 doctoral students who had not yet begun their practicums. A set of retrospective interview questions produced responses that were used to investigate the viability of the 4 proposed discrete developmental stages in the SCM. The PSDS findings are congruent with theory. The retrospective interview findings, although interesting, are less definitive. Recommendations for research and training are presented.

The authors argue that students in counseling practicum courses experience many self-defeating thoughts and anxieties. These worries can impede their performance as new counselors and can have a negative impact on the supervision process. The authors outline innovative methods used by cognitive therapists to address this anxiety. In addition, a model is presented for counselor educators to use cognitive restructuring techniques as a supervision tool. Summary Throughout their studies, counseling graduate students face many possible fears and anxieties that arise from their classroom experiences. The greatest fears and anxieties seem to be related to the counseling practicum experience. This experience is one in which students may feel incompetent, vulnerable, and unskilled as they begin to put their classroom knowledge and experiences into practice. If these fears and anxieties persist, students have a hard time making progress in the area of the counseling relationship and skill building. We have examined how practicum students' fears and anxieties might be addressed, using cognitive interventions. Such interventions allow students to take irrational thoughts and change them to rational thought patterns. This is accomplished by asking students to state their fears verbally, to think about the effects of the fears and the consequences, to think about intervening beliefs and thoughts, and to restate the fears in a rational manner. Our experience suggests that cognitive interventions are useful strategies to help practicum students combat fears and anxieties. Further research might examine the use of other behavioral interventions to address these fears. For example, does role-playing a counseling technique in supervision make a student less anxious about applying it in a real counseling session? In summary, fear and anxiety can impede the preparation of counselors during their practicum experiences. Understanding the underlying thoughts that cause these fears can help students overcome self-defeating thought patterns. Cognitive restructuring techniques have been shown to reduce tension and can be used with counseling practicum students to help relieve performance and supervision anxiety.

Multiple regression analyses of data obtained for 36 counseling supervision dyads indicated that attractiveness, an aspect of supervisory style, was negatively associated with supervisees' self-evaluations and positively associated with the difference between trainees' and supervisors' evaluations of counseling competence at the end of the 1st practicum experience. Supervisors' interpersonal sensitivity and task orientation were not found to contribute significantly to either of the criterion variables.

The author clarifies key concepts and assumptions of attachment theory, emphasizing the importance of adult attachment relationships in counseling supervision. Case examples are presented of supervisee behaviors and subsequent supervision strategies used during a semester-long practicum. The case examples illustrate how the application of theoretical constructs described in attachment theory can foster productive supervisor and supervisee alliances.

The authors investigated the relationship among trainees' counseling experience, familiarity with specific client symptomatology, case conceptualization integrative complexity (i.e., the ability to differentiate and integrate knowledge related to specific client symptomatology), and preference for supervisor style. Data from 100 beginning practicum to intern-level counselor trainees revealed that general trainee experience and familiarity with specific client symptomatology were related to trainee case conceptualization integrative complexity. However, contrary to developmental models of counselor supervision, neither trainee experience, familiarity with specific symptomatology, nor trainee case conceptualization integrative complexity significantly predicted preference for supervisor style.

According to the extant school consultation literature, counselors can effectively use brief family interventions and family assessment procedures in schools as part of a collaborative consultation approach. School counselors, however, often lack training in family systems theory, because counselor training programs tend to use individual counseling models. When used in a school counselor practicum course, the Collaborative Drawing Technique (CDT; G. M. Smith, 1985) introduces counselors-in-training to family systems concepts and lays the foundation for postgraduate training in family systems. The authors use a case illustration to explore paradigmatic shifts in trainees' case conceptualizations as a function of their use of the CDT with a family.

This study investigated the effectiveness of large group supervision, small group supervision, and combined group and individual supervision with counseling students. Sixty-four participants in a master's-level practicum were divided into 3 treatment groups that received supervision over 10 weeks. Using a pretest/posttest method, counselors were rated on growth in effectiveness and development according to self-report, supervisor, client, and objective rater responses. Analyses of covariance revealed that all supervision formats resulted in similar progress in counselor effectiveness and counselor development. Large group supervision produced a significant result on the factor Autonomy/Dependency. However, participants showed a marked preference for individual feedback and supervision.

The authors discuss a thematic analysis of retrospective phenomenological interviews of 4 group counseling practicum participants. Implications for developmental supervision theory and future research are presented.

This study assessed the current status of practicum training in counselor education programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. Findings and implications for counselor training are discussed.

An accountability model for addressing contemporary issues in the development and operation of on-campus practicum laboratories is presented. A case illustration provides an example of the model's potential use. Implications for counselor education programs are discussed.

Counselor training programs were surveyed regarding their use of practicum class supervision. Descriptive findings concerning course logistics, supervisory style, and typical activities used in practicum class supervision are presented.

Examination of the validity of Stoltenberg and Delworth's (1987) Integrated Developmental Model (IDM) of supervision found longitudinal supervisee gains in self-rated self-other awareness and independence over the course of an advanced practicum year.

Counselor educators need to explore methods for enhancing students' career counseling knowledge and competencies. Suggestions are offered for conducting an advanced career counseling practicum as one such opportunity.

A school-based substance abuse training model for counselors was sponsored by a federal grant and designed by a counselor education department. The program was successful in training counselors to design and implement prevention and intervention programs in the school setting.

Practicum and internship programs encounter two basic types of problems: those which require structural change and those which do not. This article presents a model that helps identify and solve both types.

Nursing homes are an increasingly important setting for gerontological counseling. This article portrays a multimethod approach to counselor training and supervision in nursing homes.

This article describes procedures for organizing a practicum and internship program in counselor education. Application procedures, supervision, and communication with sites, students, and supervisors are discussed.

A survey of 146 counselor education programs revealed that most teach the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edition, revised) as part of practicum or internship; few offer a separate course.

This article describes a graduate practicum in multicultural counseling that focuses on the counselor-in-training's family of origin as a strategy to increase sensitivity for counseling multicultural clients.

The authors examine practicum/internship coordination, viewing it as a system. Important components of the system are identified, and their impact on the system is explored.

Two hundred and fifty Neighborhood Youth Corps participants experienced group counseling over a 10-week period. Approximately half of the groups were conducted by five counselors who were supervised by a practicum instructor, and the remainder of the groups were led by unsupervised counselors. The participants in the supervised counseling groups were more positive toward their experiences than were those in the unsupervised counseling groups. The need for continuing supervisions or consultation of counselors is emphasized.

The delivery of supervision skills to those who direct counselors through practicum is not well defined in the counseling literature. This article addresses that issue by presenting a model for identification and training of those skills, the roles in which the skills are demonstrated, and the types of choices or discriminations that are necessary to make in tutoring trainees through the counseling practicum. This model attempts to pair the training of supervisors with the training of counselors in a systematic fashion.

There is a need for content courses and practicum experiences in the area of counseling ethnic minorities in counselor education departments across the country. Generally, the only preparation that counselor trainees and others receive in this important area is provided through workshops and conferences, since few such formal courses exist today.

A training device to facilitate counselor conceptualization of client psychological functioning is presented. Conceptualization is defined as the counselor's synthesis of the cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and interpersonal aspects of the client's intrapsyche dynamics. A specific case conceptualization format is presented, along with an explanation of each of its components. In addition, a step-by-step program for implementation of the training device within the practicum of a counselor education training program is presented.

In this study, the authors organized group supervision behaviors into categories that represent requirements of effective group supervision. To determine the requirements for effective supervision in groups, the authors collected reports of behaviors exhibited by a physician and a behavioral scientist acting as co-supervisors. These reports were gathered from 84 2nd-year medical students participating in a practicum designed to improve their patient interviewing skills. The 84 reports of effective supervisory behavior by physicians were categorized by 11 judges. The judges' categories were pooled, and principal component analysis was used to extract a single list of hypothetical latent categories. This procedure was repeated with three other sets of reports: ineffective behavior of physicians, effective behavior of behavioral scientists, and ineffective behavior of behavioral scientists. The results yielded an empirical account of group supervision to augment the conceptual and anecdotal descriptions prevalent in group supervision literature.

This 10-year review of articles on practicum supervision examines articles in terms of findings and research design employed. Research is classified according to (a) role of the supervisor, (b) process of supervision, and (c) rating systems in practicum. While the studies reviewed were indicative of prevalent characteristics of counselor candidates and procedures for rating their counseling performance, still unclear are: expected supervisory roles, the effects of various roles on trainee performance, and the differential effectiveness of contemporary methods of supervision in assisting counselors to work more effectively with their clients. More highly refined experimental studies of counselor supervision are urged.

The specific objectives of this study were (a) to collect and edit a comprehensive set of counselor competencies, (b) to operationally define the counselor competencies, and (c) to determine the specific competencies for which there is a high level of consensus of importance among counselor-educators. The 98 competencies included in this study were collected through an extensive review of the literature of the past 10 years. Fifty counselor-educators throughout the United States rated each of the 98 competencies for perceived level of importance and for when the competencies are to be acquired. Ninety competencies received a consensual rating ranging from important to critical, indicating that they need be acquired and demonstrated by counselor-trainees before the completion of practicum.

The authors compared practicum supervisors and counseling students in training in terms of dominant cognitive style and related cognitive style of counselors in training to supervision process and outcome measures. A sample of 18 supervisors and 46 students completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. After at least six supervision sessions, supervisors rated the counseling students on the Counselor Evaluation Rating Scale and the students rated the quality of the supervision relationship using the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. Supervisors had a stronger Thinking orientation and less variability on the Sensing-Intuiting orientation than did counselors in training. In contrast to previous research, a strong relationship between the cognitive style of counselors in training and supervision process and outcome measures was not detected in this study.

Correlations were obtained between scores or ratings on 17 variables derived from a review of the research and theory on the problem of selection and rated levels of empathic understanding, genuineness, and respect provided by 19 graduate students to clients during the counseling practicum experience. The results revealed that empathic understanding and respect are significantly related to two similar personality variables: tolerance of ambiguity and need for order. Ratings from Carkhuff's Index of Communication were significantly related to empathic understanding. None of the variables investigated was significantly related to genuineness. Suggestions are made for further research and the improvement of existing selection instruments.

Most of the research on supervision has focused on supervisors in academic institutions (faculty members or doctoral students). In this article the authors describe a study in which they examined supervisors in community agencies where master's level counselors were assigned for practicum and internship training. The survey suggested that agencies were heavily invested in supervising graduate level counseling students and providing them with a rich clinical experience. Respondents typically had a master's degree, used various models of supervision, and provided feedback by means of self-report and audiotape or videotape review of counseling sessions. Results suggest that these supervisors had little contact with the concurrent academic supervisor and may have had little formal training in supervision. Implications of this survey include a need for more training for supervisors in graduate counseling programs and a need for more liaison between campus and field supervisors.

Nineteen counseling interviews were rated by the respective clients, counselors, and supervisors on the Counselor Rating Form; these ratings of perceived counselor expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness were compared in a repeated measures analysis of variance. Results indicated that all three sources of perceptions were similar, although counselors rated their own behavior as significantly less expert than their clients. The article discusses the results in terms of their relevance to counselor supervision and training.

Feedback among practicum members, a neglected variable in practicum research, was assessed. Practicum members cited as giving meaningful feedback at or above the group median were recalled as producing significantly more verbal, more positive, and more owned feedback than practicum members cited as giving less meaningful feedback than the group median number of citations. The two groups did not differ significantly on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Carkhuff's Communication Index, or tape ratings. Implications of the results are discussed.

This article provides a professional model for practicum supervision using supervisors with equal responsibility and status. The authors discuss the influence of preprofessional guilds on practicum supervision and cite the major tenets that distinguish a profession from a guild. A model that attempts to meet some of the deficiencies identified in the literature on practicum supervision is proposed. With this model we stress the use of professional knowledge in both the content and process of practicum supervision. Dual-focus supervision is seen as the integration and application of two approaches to practicum supervision. Theory congruency is defined as the ability to translate espoused theory into practice. Interpersonal dynamics refers to the ability to recognize and attend to the impact of the counselor's and the client's behavior on each other. The application of the model is described, and examples from the use of the model are given. Student comments tended to support their satisfaction with the dual-supervision model. The model was seen to produce changes in trainee behavior and in supervisor behavior.

This article presents the results of the application of a professional model for practicum supervision using co-equal supervisors. This study found that beginning practicum students (a) learned to use a counseling theory in a professional manner with clients, (b) were rated by an expert rater as having skills equal to or higher than a comparison group of interns, graduate students, and employed agency counselors, and (c) rated the professional supervision practicum higher than did those under the usual apprenticeship supervision model. The authors suggest that counselor educators and supervisors can train students in less time to respond at a more complex skill level than has been previously reported in the literature.

Counselor-trainee response uncertainty and delayed supervisor feedback are two apparent difficulties when looking at the normal practicum procedures from a learning theory frame of reference. Twenty-four counselor trainees were randomly assigned to three experimental groups and one control group, i.e., immediate feedback, feedback and instructions, equipment present, and control. Audio tapes pre- and post-were selected and rated on empathy. An analysis of variance on the pre- and post-differences in ratings was computed resulting in a significant F-ratio (p < .05). Subsequent multiple comparisons showed all experimental groups significant when compared to the control group (p < .01) The results showed that all experimental conditions increased counselor trainees' empathic responses significantly.