Professional identity development is an important professional issue. Examining the lived experiences of counselors-in-training (CITs), the authors used grounded theory methodology to describe the transformational tasks that are required for professional identity development. Tasks include finding a personal definition of counseling, internalizing responsibility for professional growth, and developing a systemic identity-all simultaneously manifesting as students progress from focus on experts to self-validation. Counselor educators can facilitate movement through these transformational tasks by helping CITs to increase self-evaluating, self-motivating, and self-locating within a professional community.

The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to investigate practicing counselors' professional identity development at nodal points during their career. Through the use of 6 focus groups of beginning, experienced, and expert counselors, 26 participants shared their experiences, and 6 themes emerged to form a theory of transformational tasks of professional identity development. Through these tasks, counselors encountered issues of idealism toward realism, burnout toward rejuvenation, and compartmentalization toward congruency.

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The authors used grounded theory to explore professional identity transitions for 23 counselor education doctoral students in a cross‐section sample based on nodal points in their programs. The transformational tasks that doctoral students face involve integration of multiple identities, evolution of confidence and legitimacy, and acceptance of responsibility as the source of knowledge about the profession. The authors offer implications for training doctoral students.

The popular film Good Will Hunting. which portrays a counseling relationship. is discussed as an effective tool for facilitating the teaching of counseling theories. This article describes the authors' experience using this movie as a teaching tool. documenting the students' improved comprehension and application of course concepts and the instructor's improved rapport with the class.Rather than use that [classroom) space to tell my students everything practitioners know about the subject-information they will neither retain nor know how to use-I need to bring them into the circle of practice in that field. into its version of the community of truth. To do so. I can present small but critical samples of the data of the field to help students understand how a practitioner in this field ... thinks. (Palmer. 1998. p. 122) In counselor education. bringing the "community of truth" in the form of "small but critical samples of , , . the field" has meant bringing clients into the classroom. Clients can appear in a variety of formats-ease studies. videos of counseling sessions. demonstrations. and role plays. Educators use different techniques to bring clients to life; the success of any technique depends on the unique qualities ofthe educator. Palmer (1998) described the "proper and powerful role of technique: as we learn more about who we are. we can learn techniques that reveal rather than conceal the Gary Koch is a clinic director of counselor education at