The Practitioner Scholar: Journal of Counseling and Professional Psychology 1
Volume 3, 2014
Counselor as Client: Emerging Answers and New Questions
Signe M. Kastberg, Florida Gulf Coast University
Rachel A. Jordan, John M. Kiweewa, & Tamara Clingerman, St. John Fisher College
Abstract
This paper reports results of a survey and qualitative research that explored the
personal experiences of one graduate counseling program’s alumni/ae regarding
their perceptions of personal counseling and the impact it has had on their practice
as counselors. Data analysis reveals that most alumni/ae who completed the
counseling program had individual counseling experiences and all of those
alumni/ae felt that those experiences had a positive impact on their practice as
counselors. Further, three major themes were identified that describe the benefit
that being a client has had on their practice. Those themes include empathy for
the client role, development of skills, and personal growth. Conclusions and
limitations are discussed.
There is consensus within the counseling profession on the importance of personal
growth and development of counselors-in-training (Luke & Kiweewa, 2010). Such consensus
derives from both anecdotal and empirical research findings, which demonstrate that the
counselor’s self-understanding and personal characteristics uniquely predict counseling
outcomes (e.g., Ackerman & Hilsenroth, 2003; Crits-Christoph & Mintz, 1991; Wampold &
Bolt, 2006). In spite of disagreements, various authors have identified experiential group
participation and personal counseling as some of the means through which such growth and
development may be fostered during counselor training (Johns, 1996; Kiweewa, 2010). Indeed,
the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP]
training standards (2001, 2009) require that Counselor Education programs provide a minimum
of ten hours of experiential group participation for every student in a CACREP-accredited
program. While the experiential group is a required aspect of counselor training, the counseling
profession remains divided on whether trainees ought to be mandated to receive any type of
personal counseling as part of their training. While some view personal therapy as an important
training requirement (e.g., Macran & Shapiro, 1998), others have called for caution in the face of
conflicting findings regarding its usefulness (Atkinson, 2006). Some counselor education
programs require students to participate in counseling as clients in order to successfully complete
the training program, while other programs strongly encourage such participation (Roach &
Young, 2007).
Disagreements over mandatory versus voluntary counseling have been compounded by
the paucity of scholarly literature on the impact/benefits of personal counseling for trainees and
graduates of counseling programs. In a study involving 204 participants, Roach and Young
(2007) investigated the influence of counselor education programs on counselor wellness. The
participants were students who were recruited from various counseling tracks including mental
health, school, marriage and family, and community counseling at three different universities.
Using the Five Factor Wellness Evaluation of Life Style (5F-WEL) as a measure of wellness,
,The Practitioner Scholar: Journal of Counseling and Professional Psychology 2
Volume 3, 2014
these authors collected data from three groups of students at three different points (0-12 credit
hours completed; 18-30 credit hours completed, and 45-60 credit hours completed) in their
training. Sixty-two percent reported that their programs required personal counseling, while 38%
reported that personal counseling was not a requirement. Statistical analysis of these results,
however, found no significant difference in “wellness” of those required to participate in
counseling and those who were not (Roach & Young, 2007). Further, some of the respondents
for whom personal counseling was not a requirement, reported that they declined to pursue the
option. The fact that, when given the option, some students decline to undertake the client
experience suggests that perhaps counselor educators have not made a compelling case for the
value of such an experience for individuals embarking upon a career as a professional counselor.
More specifically, counseling programs that either require or emphasize personal
counseling as an integral aspect of their training have provided little evidence regarding the
impact of the client experience for their students or graduates. Nevertheless, there is a growing,
albeit small, body of literature indicating that students and practicing professionals cite a number
of positive outcomes achieved by having experiences as a client. It is imperative for counselor
educators to understand the research as it pertains to counseling and other related mental health
fields and add the voices of practicing counselors to the discussion about what impact personal
counseling has on counselor development and professional practice.
Psychotherapy for Mental Health Providers
Although just emerging in the counseling field, there exists extensive literature on the
importance of personal therapy for service providers in such helping professions as social work,
psychiatry, marriage and family therapy, and psychology. The client experience for providers
dates back to Sigmund Freud, who indicated that in order to become a therapist, one must
undergo his/her own psychotherapy as a client (Freud, 1937/1964). In more modern times, the
role of the client experience in the development of social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists,
and counselors has been examined; perhaps most notably by Norcross, Strausser-Kirtland, and
Missar (1988). Norcross et al. (1988) surveyed a group of 719 psychologists, psychiatrists, and
clinical social workers. Of those, 71% reported experience of personal psychotherapy. Themes
identified as pro-therapy by respondents included the enhancement of their own mood states,
clarification of personal perception, alleviation of stress, improved mental and emotional
functioning, enhanced understanding of interpersonal dynamics, validation of the worth of the
counseling enterprise, sensitization to the client role, and the opportunity to observe clinical
methods. Over 90% of respondents in the study indicated improvement in presenting symptoms.
Respondents sought therapy for personal reasons, not professional reasons; however, the
majority of respondents indicated that their personal experiences as clients were beneficial for
their professional work as well (Norcross et al., 1988).
Educational psychologists Skovholt and McCarthy (1988) also spoke to the question of
the ‘client’ experience as part of the developmental process for therapists in training, specifically
identifying this as a “critical incident” in counselor development. They aptly stated, “If
counseling-therapy does not work for us [as clients], how can we ethically spend our lives in this
business?” (p. 71). This logically leads to the question of the quality of the ‘client’ experience:
that is, even if we require of our students that they have an experience as a client in a counseling
, The Practitioner Scholar: Journal of Counseling and Professional Psychology 3
Volume 3, 2014
interaction, of what value is the experience if the counseling is not of high quality, or if the
duration of the counseling relationship is insufficient to enable the client to identify this as a
valuable experience? If a student has had a ‘client’ experience prior to entering a counseling
training program, what developmental and ethical concerns arise if a program mandates an in-
training counseling experience?
Since the Norcross et al. (1988) study, others have replicated the work (Bike, Norcross, &
Schatz, 2009) and some have narrowed the focus to a particular profession, such as psychiatry
(Mace, 2001), or towards understanding the reasons why some mental health professionals
abstain from their own therapeutic experiences (Norcross, Bike, Evans, & Schatz, 2008). The
role of personal therapy in the professional counseling curriculum has been called into question;
some mental health professionals are not required to engage in their own therapeutic experience
at all (Daw & Joseph, 2007).
Mackey and Mackey (1994), examining a subset of social workers originally surveyed in
the Norcross et al. (1988) study, discovered that the specific type of psychotherapy received by
trainees in prior studies tended to be psychoanalytic/psychodynamic. Not surprisingly, given the
therapeutic modality, those trainees identified the primary assets of the experience to be insights
regarding transference/counter-transference dynamics and self-awareness. The themes for those
social workers experiencing personal therapy were: therapist as role model, enhancement of
empathy skills, a better understanding of the treatment process, development of self-awareness,
and general self-development on both personal and professional dimensions (Mackey & Mackey,
1994).
Additionally, Skovholdt and Ronnestad (1992) studied both graduate students and
practicing professionals, and they found an important transition from the externally imposed
rigidity of graduate training and its myriad requirements, a “received knowledge” position, to
“constructed knowledge” as professional therapists. While the Skovholdt and Ronnestad (1992)
study stated that the participant pool included students and “therapist-counselor” practitioners, it
did not state their specific professions. Given that the various professions in the field of mental
health rest upon differing philosophies and training models, it would seem beneficial to make
these kinds of professional distinctions.
Alternatively, Grimmer and Tribe (2001) conducted a small qualitative study with
counseling psychologists and trainees regarding the impact of personal therapy on their
professional development. The authors identified several important benefits not previously
mentioned: socialization into the professional role via modeling, support during challenging
times, and a perceived ability to separate personal issues of the therapist from those of the client.
Finally, Grimmer and Tribe (2001) also noted that the ‘client’ experience validated therapy as an
effective intervention. However, this study included only seven participants.
The Role of Personal Therapy for Counselor Trainees
There is some literature on personal therapy as an aspect of fostering personal growth and
awareness specifically among counselor trainees (Macaskill & Macaskill, 1992; Macran &
Shapiro, 1998; Macran, Stiles, & Smith, 1999; Roach & Young, 2007). While some in the
