Potent life experiences are both magnetic and elastic-magnetic in the sense that they attract new meanings across time and elastic in that they expand to help structure and inform those new experiences. For me, a particular episode some years ago has gradually become a metaphor for understanding the experience of personal change, and I am periodically reminded of it whenever I am helping someone fashion significant life revisions.In the Gulf Stream waters that course along the continental shelf on the eastern seaboard of North America, scuba divers are sometimes wont to do what is colloquially known as a "drift dive." They are transported by boat to the brink of the shelf, and an anchored line is set adrift in the swift waters, borne by a large fluorescent buoy. Drawn by the warm flow of the Gulf Stream currents, the line sweeps along the edge of the shelf at approximately a 100-foot depth, and the boat followsThis chapter is a slightly expanded version of the article "The Challenge of Change:

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Competence is of paramount importance to training in professional psychology, yet little research has addressed the development of psychometrically sound instruments for assessing competence, despite repeated calls for work in this area. Many current graduate school and internship training programs rely on cumulated hours of supervised clinical training and successful coursework completion as indicators of graduate student success, indicators that are widely regarded as poor proxies for the valid assessment of actual competence (Fouad et al., 2009). The present study aimed to address this gap by developing a measure that follows from one of the leading conceptualizations of competence in the field of professional psychology today. Results from an exploratory factor analysis of 491 psychotherapists revealed three related domains of professional competence: foundational, functional, and continuing competencies. These results were later used as a guide for confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) with cohorts of 471 board-certified psychologists and two samples of predoctoral interns and fellows (N = 647 and 264). Results from the CFAs led to a 10-item Professional Competencies Scale (PCS) with excellent fit and strong reliability and validity (see ). Current limitations of the instrument are noted and recommendations are explored in relation to the domains of training and practice, with attention to the important role of a continuing commitment to ongoing professional development.

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