personal and professional development in counselling essay

Personal Development in Counselling

Definition of ‘personal development’ in counselling.

Personal development is ‘an essential aspect of training in person-centred psychology and person-centred therapy and, generally, takes place and is fostered in the training group (as distinct from individual personal therapy away from training)’ ( Tudor and  Merry, 2002: 97–98 ).

In counselling, personal development is a way of enhancing self-awareness.

Importance of Self-Awareness in Counselling

Self-awareness is important in person-centred counselling. If we have not looked at ourselves in depth, it will be very difficult to offer high-quality counselling to clients.

In counselling, we use ourselves as the main tool with which to help clients. If we have not looked at ourselves in depth, it will be very difficult to offer high-quality counselling to clients. We need self-awareness in order to help clients: accepting ourselves more fully allows us to offer the same acceptance to them.

To be able to deal with personal triggers in the counselling room, we must understand our own process, and so be able to spot and avoid parallel process. Sometimes, it may be necessary to take a break from counselling if we are dealing with a tough personal situation (e.g. bereavement or divorce). Not facing up to our own process risks damaging both ourselves and our clients.

If our personal development identifies that there are types of issues or clients that we cannot work ethically with (e.g. because of something in our own background or experience), then we must make a referral to a practitioner who is able to help.

Personal Development Linked to Theory

Self-awareness – gained through personal development – is perhaps especially important in person-centred counselling, which is all about relating to the client in a way that embodies the three core conditions of empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard. Areas of incongruence within ourselves may prevent us from offering these conditions. Some examples would be as follows:

• If we had suffered a difficult loss that we had not addressed fully, and then a client’s story reminded us of our own experience, we might find it impossible to stay within their frame of reference, instead flipping back into our own feelings about our own loss. This would prevent us from providing the client with empathy (i.e. putting ourselves in their shoes, and accompanying them as they explore their emotions).

In counselling, we use ourselves as the main tool with which to help clients ... We need self-awareness in order to help clients: accepting ourselves more fully allows us to offer the same acceptance to them.

• If we had been brought up with the condition of worth that it was rude to challenge people in authority, we might then find it hard to be congruent with a client we perceived as more powerful than us in some way. This would stop us using the skill of challenge with the person, and so would undermine the therapeutic relationship, and fail to fulfil the six necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change.
• If we had an unexplored prejudice against, say, people of a particular sexuality, then found ourselves with such a client in the counselling room, we may not be able to offer them unconditional positive regard . This would adversely affect the quality of service that we were able to provide to the client. It could even be harmful to them (for example, if their self-esteem has already been affected by such prejudice outside the counselling room) – so breaching the important ethical standard of non-maleficence (a commitment to avoiding harm to the client), as embodied in the Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions .

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6 Ways to Kick-Start Your Personal Development Plan

Methods of Personal Development

Counselling students are encouraged to use a range of different methods and tools to increase their self-awareness – for example, writing a reflective journal, using the Johari window, and participating in personal development groups.  Personal counselling and supervision are also important in developing self-awareness, but are (as noted in the definition above) not always seen formally as part of personal development.

Johari Window

Devised in the USA by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram in 1955, the Johari window (named by combining the two men’s names) is a tool to help people gain self-awareness and achieve personal growth. This comprises four ‘panes’, as shown in the picture. The idea is to expand the open area, for example by eliciting feedback from others.

Personal Development Groups

These groups (sometimes known as ‘process groups’) are a core part of counselling training, complementing the input on theory and skills by providing a safe space for developing self-awareness. There, we can look at changes we are going through, find the courage to explore them, and get others’ views.

They can be very challenging, but also very enriching. They offer an opportunity both to increase self-awareness and to practise empathic listening.

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Reflective Practice and Personal Development in Counselling and Psychotherapy (2nd ed) Bager-Charleson et al..

2020, Bager-Charleson, S (ed) with du Plock, S., van Rijn, B. and Wright, J (2020) Reflective Practice and Personal Development in Counselling and Psychotherapy. 2nd ed. London: Sage

Reflective practice is a vital part of counselling and psychotherapy training and practice. This is the second edition of a 'go-to' introduction to what it involves, why it is important, and how to use different models for reflection and reflective practice to enhance work with clients. It aims to support personal development and professional development throughout your counselling training and into practice.

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This resource has been prepared to support the development of reflective thinking and practice. It provides a variety of information intended to aid the learning of new knowledge and behaviours and/or enhance existing ones. The information, however, is quite flexible and is designed to assist with the construction of practices appropriate to the needs of individuals rather than being prescriptive.

Katarzyna Wieczorek-Ghisso

Reflective practice is process of inquiry where educators reflect on their setting and think about what they may change. It is about considering how everyday ‘happenings’ shape thinking and influence decision making. Said to enhance teaching and learning, reflective practice is not a one off process rather a cycle of ongoing learning that occurs when educators take the time to stop and think, even momentarily.

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Lynn Clouder

Fernando Batista

"Maybe reflective practices offer us a way of trying to make sense of the uncertainty in our workplaces and the courage to work competently and ethically at the edge of order and chaos…" (Ghaye, 2000, p.7) Reflective practice has burgeoned over the last few decades throughout various fields of professional practice and education. In some professions it has become one of the defining features of competence, even if on occasion it has been adopted-mistakenly and unreflectively-to rationalise existing practice. The allure of the 'reflection bandwagon' lies in the fact that it 'rings true' (Loughran, 2000). Within different disciplines and intellectual traditions, however, what is understood by 'reflective practice' varies considerably (Fook et al, 2006). Multiple and contradictory understandings of reflective practice can even be found within the same discipline. Despite this, some consensus has been achieved amid the profusion of definitions. In general, reflective practice is understood as the process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice (Boud et al 1985; Boyd and Fales, 1983; Mezirow, 1981, Jarvis, 1992). This often involves examining assumptions of everyday practice. It also tends to involve the individual practitioner in being self-aware and critically evaluating their own responses to practice situations. The point is to recapture practice experiences and mull them over critically in order to gain new understandings and so improve future practice. This is understood as part of the process of lifelong learning. Beyond these broad areas of agreement, however, contention and difficulty reign. There is debate about the extent to which practitioners should focus on themselves as individuals rather than the larger social context. There are questions about how, when, where and why reflection should take place. For busy professionals short on time, reflective practice is all too easily applied in bland, mechanical, unthinking ways,

Development of professional practice through reflection, including an originally created model of reflection.

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What does it mean to be a reflective practitioner? Is reflection something I write in a journal after work or perhaps it is something I do in clinical super-vision? Is reflection a technology I might be exposed to on an educational course? Is it simply a form of thinking that I do anyway? Or is it a way of being within everyday practice that makes me more mindful of the ways I think, feel and respond to situations? Is it a particular style of leadership? Perhaps it is all of these things and more? In response to these questions, I am going to suggest a typology of reflective practices that moves from doing reflection towards reflection as a way of being within everyday practice (Box 1.1). I suspect that many practitioners consider reflection as reflection-on-experience or reflection-on-action (Schön 1987): looking back at 'an experience' or some event that has taken place. The idea of an 'experience' is difficult to grasp: where does one experience begin and another ...

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Personal and Professional Development Groups in Counselling and Psychotherapy Training: A Pluralistic Perspective

Julia McLeod, Marie-Clare Murphie, Kate Smith, Christine Kupfer and Mhairi Thurston (University of Abertay), Hanne Oddli (University of Oslo), Lynne Gabriel (York St John University), Mick Cooper (University of Roehampton)

What do personal and professional development (PPD) groups, on counselling and psychotherapy training courses, look like from a pluralistic perspective? How do they differ, for instance, from more person-centred process groups or ones that are based on psychodynamic principles?

Underlying Principles

A basic starting point for pluralism is that different people learn and develop in different ways. In addition, it assumes that people are agentic, intentional, and directional. Pluralism encourages shared decision-making and mutual understanding through facilitating dialogue and conversation around goals, tasks, and methods; and uses metacommunication and feedback to ensure that collaborative work stays on track.

There are many ways in which these principles can inform the design and delivery of personal and professional development (PPD) groups within counselling and psychotherapy training courses. Participation in such groups can provide students and trainees with first-hand experience of pluralistic processes and enable them to develop groupwork skills and awareness that can be applied in therapy and training contexts at later stages in their careers. Reflection on participation in pluralistic PPD groups can also offers opportunities for learning from the rich group process literature within humanistic, psychodynamic, and other traditions.

A Sense of Direction

A pluralistic PPD group is oriented toward the accomplishment of participants’ goals and directions. Early on, and throughout the group process, there is discussion of – and reference back to – the group aims. So rather than ‘going with the flow’, as a more classical person-centred PPD group might do, there would be some explicit dialogue about ‘what we are trying to do here’ and why. These aims might be shaped from the outside: for instance, on a course, the programme would likely have certain objectives for PD groups (for instance, stated in a Course Handbook or Groups Manual) – but these would be explicitly talked about and referred back to, rather than sitting more in the background. It is also important to think about each student’s internal aims and external aims/expectations and discuss these – perhaps linking to the idea of deliberate practice self-development. The group aims might diverge from the individual aims and some discussion should occur to recognise and accommodate this.

A Focus on Relational Development

Because it comprises multiple relationships that unfold in real time, being in a PPD allows students to develop an understanding of the relational dimensions of a pluralistic approach: for instance, engendering collaborative and dialogical practice and eliciting personal and relational agency. This process has the potential not only to support group interaction but also to contribute to the development of practitioners’ abilities to facilitate collaborative therapy relationships.

Agreeing Tasks and Methods

The tasks/methods of the group would be up for negotiation and discussion at an early stage, in relation to the group aims. For instance, if it were agreed that the group was about developing self-awareness, members might bring in ideas about how that could be done (e.g., drawing timeline, sharing important events in one’s life), and discussion would happen about the kinds of methods that the group would like to try out. The pluralistically-oriented student textbook, Personal and Professional Development: A Practical Guide for Counsellors, Psychotherapists and Mental Health Practitioners (John McLeod and Julia McLeod, Open University Press, 2013) provides a rich source of tasks that can be negotiated and used in personal and professional development groups.

When working with a task, a group needs to not only decided and agree to engage with it, but also to share understandings of the purpose, scope, and expectations of the task (possibly including adapting the task in the light of preferences and needs of members); agree the methods to be used in pursuing the task; and to allow space to check in at the end to review the outcomes of the experience.

Valuing Multiple Perspectives

Multiple perspectives on what the group is trying to do, and how to get there, are valued and respected by a pluralistic facilitator. That is, the facilitator strives to not hold a ‘norm’ about what the group should be and how to get there: whether, for instance, that it was ‘best’ to allow things to flow naturally, or set goals, or work with unconscious processes. That is not to say that the group would not adopt certain ways of doing things, but it would be a question of what the group felt was the most helpful way towards achieving its particular aims, not the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of any particular method, per se. In essence, the facilitator works with group members to tailor each group session to the needs of the unique set of participants.

The Challenge of Negotiating across Multiple Perspectives

Negotiating across multiple perspectives is likely to be a challenge in any pluralistically-informed group. In one-to-one therapy, you’re working with one person’s needs. In a group context, there’s multiple needs, and what one person wants and prefers may directly contradict another’s wants and preferences. The role of the facilitator would be to help the group address this respectfully and, ideally, find potential synergies (or, if not, compromises) between differing wants in the group. The facilitator supports the group to understand and acknowledge the multiple and complex paradoxical perspectives that play out in groups, plus within diverse peoples and perspectives. The group context provides a powerful medium through which diverse and multiple perspectives can be explored. Through this exploration, dialogical opportunities for the respectful resolution and co-existence of diverse perspectives can be created.

Flexible and Sensitive Leadership

The role of the facilitator is key to the initiation of the group, to help establish group norms and model collaboration and holding of multiple perspectives. It is essential for a facilitator to be flexibly able to transition between contrasting ‘leadership’ positions, such as initiating activities, providing structure, holding, observing, collaborating, and sharing personal experiences, as needed. During this process the student therapists learn to manage their own boundaries and voice, learn how they impact on others, and become able to engage in difference and discourse as a generative stance. Ultimately the goal of interrelating is that each member of the group should be equal, and a sensitivity to voice and power is essential – in many groups this may remain a direction of travel rather than an arrival point. The facilitator models an ability to navigate the need to undertake tasks and activities but also to observe and make space for reflection on emergent dynamics and patterns which might impact on the group aims. They should also be sensitive to power and inclusivity issues which should be addressed not just for student learning, but to retain an appropriate ethical stance.

Conclusion: The Contribution and Development of Pluralistic PPD

For trainers and students on pluralistic programmes it is, of course, important to think about what PPD groups look like from this perspective. But on other courses, too, a pluralistic perspective may have something to offer. Pluralism embraces a range of methods and many different methods can embrace pluralism. Above all, it’s about respecting differences and finding ways to talk through different perspectives so that everyone can get to the places that they need to be.

There is an established tradition of pluralistic PPD within the counsellor training programme at Abertay University, dating back 15 years. In the Abertay programme, an adapted version of the McLeod and McLeod (2013) textbook is used as a manual for group leaders and members. This functions in some respects in similar fashion to a decision tool in shared decision-making in health care. The Abertay PPD groups are embedded in other activities that support and extend their scope, such as students keeping learning journals, engaging in critical reflection on group experiences within assignments, eliciting feedback from tutors and fellow participants, and guided reading on group dynamics and therapist development. The operation of the Abertay PPD groups has evolved over time in a number of significant ways. For example, the sharing of autobiographical statements has emerged as a core activity in the early stages of a group, and there has been an emphasis in PPD groups in the later stages of the programme to function as settings to support the use of deliberate practice. Different group facilitators each have their own distinctive style of leading a group, which has created learning opportunities for the tutor team as a whole.

At the present time there is a limited evidence base for pluralistic PPD groups, or areas of innovation. In the wider group therapy literature, there have recent studies that have looked at how routine process and outcome scales can be adapted and applied to function as feedback measures and conversational tools in group contexts. It could be useful to try out some of these instruments, or modified versions of them, in pluralistic PPD groups. It could also be valuable to look at how goals forms might be used in similar fashion.

Focus: Finding my Strengths in Pluralistic Practice

Pluralistic therapy cards: playing with potential, 1 thought on “ personal and professional development groups in counselling and psychotherapy training: a pluralistic perspective ”.

Brilliant blog post, very timely, and thank you for the book recommendation. It is an interesting time with the change to online PD groups in the current pandemic – a new set of challenges and learning for students and facilitators!

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Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) & Counselling MSc: Personal and Professional Development in Counselling

• Psychodynamic Counselling and Time Limited Practice
• Evidence Based Practice & Research Methods
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Welcome to your Personal and Professional Development in Councelling reading list. Here you will find the resources to support you throughout this module.

Essential reading.

BACP (2018).  Ethical framework for the counselling professions.  Lutterworth: BACP.

BABCP (2017).  Standard of conduct, performance and ethics.  Bury: BABCP.

Module Websites

BACP - providing guidance and resources on professional issues for counsellors

BABCP - providing guidance and resources on professional issues for cognitive behavioural therapies 

Module Journals

Therapy Today - published by the BACP. A good and very readable resource.

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Personal and Professional Development for Counsellors

• Paul Wilkins - Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Description

`Conveys valuable information... Paul Wilkins writes well... With the current emphasis by accrediting counselling organizations on the importance of ongoing personal and professional development, this book would be a salutary place to start on such a journey... The book explores what is meant by "fit to practise" and highlights the need to provide a better service to those who seek the skills of a counsellor. With the increasing emphasis on the need for better praxis in the field, it is vital that counsellors practise what they preach. If they fail to pay attention to their own ongoing well-being, they should not be surprised if the therapy they offer to others is seen to be marred by the shadow of hypocrisy' - Counselling, The Journal of the British Association for Counselling

`A helpful guide for newly qualified counsellors. It gives some comprehensive ideas and tips for further development... a useful book' - Self & Society

`Thought-provoking and enhanced by questions scattered throughout the text, this book covers areas of training, accreditation, personal therapy, supervision, contribution to knowledge, creative writing, personal journal work, portfolios, dreamwork, self-resourcing and development on a budget. Well-paced and presented in a clear, practical and authoritative way, this book offers information and guidance... Each chapter is well structured... Highlighted boxes contain valuable information... Quotations add to the richness of the text... this book has helped me to question my developmental needs and I certainly intend following up some of its ideas and suggestions' - Counselling News

A useful text to support students in understanding the importance of personal and professional development

Wilkins explains the reasoning behind Personal and Professional Development for trainees and qualified counsellors alike. In my experience this is a common question throughout the training.

Although the book is well written and structure it lack practical guidelines on how to implement much of the theory. It is a useful book it terms of perhaps mental health and wellbeing, but fell short for the purposes of ‘Personal Development Plans’ (PDP) now being rolled out across the UK in Higher Educational Institutions and other tertiary education.

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Counselling: Developing Personal and Professional Self-Awareness

Introduction, background and overview.

Although it is an important part of the healthcare and social support systems, the counseling process is normally uncertain and ambiguous and can create anxiety and vulnerability for the practitioners. Developing a good understanding of the self encompasses a unique process of both emotional and experiential learning. Counselors achieve a good understanding of their skills, performance, knowledge, as well as any personal factors that are likely to deter their ability to work (Posluns & Gall, 2020). Consequently, this paper aims to elaborate on the process and the importance of professional and self-awareness for sustainable mental health and wellness in the counseling profession.

Analysis of Personal and Professional Awareness

Principles of professional and personal awareness.

The professional and personal awareness process in counseling is normally based on the principles of personal development, a wider topic that includes awareness of the self. The aim is to enhance self-awareness, including the factors or problems likely to hinder the performance of the professional in dealing with the clients (Sutton, 2016). The practitioners are the main tool with which clients obtain help, especially those with mental health issues. Consequently, if a counselor does not look at the self, it will be difficult to offer high-quality counseling services. In essence, counselors must accept themselves more fully to allow them to offer the same level of acceptance to the clients.

Developing professional and personal awareness becomes helpful for counselors to achieve awareness of their levels of skills, performance, and knowledge, and any factor likely to deter their ability to deal with clients. At the start of any session, the counselors are likely to face fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. Counselors might be afraid of judgment from others and themselves as well, which demonstrates the need for reflective practice that includes developing personal and professional self-awareness (Sutton, 2016). For example, the counselor might face such questions as did I elicit bad emotions in the client during the session?

The Process of Developing Personal and Professional Awareness

The process of developing personal and professional self-awareness in counseling facilitates positive change and also establishes the professional confidence needed in the long-term counseling profession. Within the process of developing personal and professional self-awareness, practitioners become aware of what is occurring for them, including how they apply knowledge obtained in class, skills, and areas of weaknesses that require additional efforts to improve their performance (Sutton, 2016). Counselors cannot achieve good performance if they are not aware of their personalities, beliefs, emotions, strengths, thoughts, and motivations.

Although there are several approaches or processes through which counselors can apply to achieve professional and personal awareness, the Cycle of Caring process is among the most effective methods (Skovholt & Trotter-Mathison, 2016). Developed in the early 2000s, the Cycle of Caring is a cyclic process with four phases- empathic attachment, active involvement, felt separation, and re-creation.

The empathic attachment phase, the first stage in the cycle, simply seeks to make the practitioner close to the client. The goal of the stage is to make an optimum professional attachment with the client based on the key elements of attaching, bonding, and connecting (Skovholt & Trotter-Mathison, 2016). During this phase, the counselors can review their skills in listening to their clients and determine whether they were overwhelmed. Learning emotional boundaries is a vital skill for counselors at this stage. For example, as a student counselor, I will seek to try as much as possible to repeatedly form an optimal professional attachment with my clients by listening to their stories and assuming to be in their positions while also keeping emotional boundaries.

The second stage, known as the active involvement phase, serves as the main working stage for the counselors. During this stage, the counselor shares a vision with the client and works towards achieving that specific goal. Active listening is the main activity for the counselor to learn about the position or situation that the client faces while also developing a support-challenge balance for change and development (Skovholt & Trotter-Mathison, 2016). For example, in my case, as a counselor, I will not only allow the client to do much of the talking but also ask minimal questions to elicit more information from them. After the session, I will review my questions and the answers provided in the story to learn if I did it right and note my areas of weaknesses for further improvement.

Felt separation is the third stage in the cycle where the counselor should, as the name of the stage suggests, relieve the active emotional burden of the relationship with the client. As Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison (2016) note, the professional loss process appears as a form of the grief process for the practitioner. The idea is to practice termination skills in this stage of the cycle or use caring burnout. In my case, as an example, I will practice an optimal level of client-care versus self-care, where I will start the discussion with the clients after they finish their stories. After the session, I will ensure that I note the areas of weakness and strengths that I noted for future improvement.

The final stage is the re-creation phase that involves taking a break and then returning to the start as the name suggests. Specifically, it involves taking a break for self-care, resting, renovating, restoring, and returning. At this point, I will be very active and fully representing to help my clients (Skovholt & Trotter-Mathison, 2016). I will practice self-care in this phase as a means of restoration to start the cycle once more.

Why the Development of Self-Awareness Fosters Sustainable Mental Health and Wellness

Personal and professional awareness is linked to sustainability in mental health and wellness in the counseling profession. Mental health professionals work with clients from varied cultures, lifestyles, religions, beliefs, languages, and value systems (Sutton, 2016). Effective counseling requires the practitioners to recognize their value systems to respect individuality. Mental health practitioners, through self-awareness, achieve both emotional intelligence and success. With this knowledge, they create achievable goals because they can consider their strengths, weaknesses, and motivations in goal setting (Malkoç & Sünbül, 2020). They use self-knowledge to guide themselves on the right path by pursuing the opportunities that best fit their preferences, skills, and goals. Therefore, they develop a specific method and rational approach for dealing with people with mental issues, thus creating sustainability in their profession.

Developing Personal Awareness as a Mental Health Counselor

I can develop self-awareness as a counselor in the mental health and wellness professionals to improve outcomes and sustainability. I will ensure that before every session, I make a list of questions that guide me when dealing with the client (Sutton, 2016). Some keywords in the session, for instance, will revolve around my listening, intervening, relating with the story, and creating a convenient environment (Sutton, 2016). After the session, I will reflect on my experience and performance and fill in the questions to determine my areas of strength and weaknesses.

This discussion elaborates the process and the importance of professional and self-awareness for sustainable mental health and wellness in the counseling profession. The discussion shows the principles of personal and professional awareness, highlighting the importance of realizing personal weaknesses and strengths for counselors. It also discusses the important steps in the professional and personal awareness process and how I can follow them to improve sustainability as a counselor in the mental health profession.

Malkoç, A., & Sünbül, Z. A. (2020). The Relationship between Emotional Literacy, Cognitive Flexibility and Counseling Self-Efficacy of Senior Students in Psychology and Psychological Counseling and Guidance. Educational Research and Reviews , 15 (1), 27-33. Web.

Posluns, K., & Gall, T. L. (2020). Dear mental health practitioners, take care of yourselves: A literature review on self-care. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling , 42 (1), 1-20. Web.

Skovholt, T. M. & Trotter-Mathison (2016). The resilient practitioner: Burnout and compassion fatigue prevention and self-care strategies for the helping professions (3rd ed.) . Routledge

Sutton, A. (2016). Measuring the effects of self-awareness: Construction of the self-awareness outcomes questionnaire . Europe’s journal of psychology , 12 (4), 645. Web.

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PsychologyWriting. (2023, September 19). Counselling: Developing Personal and Professional Self-Awareness. https://psychologywriting.com/counselling-developing-personal-and-professional-self-awareness/

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PsychologyWriting . (2023) 'Counselling: Developing Personal and Professional Self-Awareness'. 19 September.

PsychologyWriting . 2023. "Counselling: Developing Personal and Professional Self-Awareness." September 19, 2023. https://psychologywriting.com/counselling-developing-personal-and-professional-self-awareness/.

1. PsychologyWriting . "Counselling: Developing Personal and Professional Self-Awareness." September 19, 2023. https://psychologywriting.com/counselling-developing-personal-and-professional-self-awareness/.

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PsychologyWriting . "Counselling: Developing Personal and Professional Self-Awareness." September 19, 2023. https://psychologywriting.com/counselling-developing-personal-and-professional-self-awareness/.

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Personal Development in Counselling Training - Essay Example

• Subject: Psychology
• Type: Essay
• Level: Masters
• Pages: 5 (1250 words)
• Downloads: 10
• Author: derdman

Extract of sample "Personal Development in Counselling Training"

• 19 propositions of carl rogers
• Carl Rogers
• Know Thyself
• Cited: 7 times
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