Death and debilitating illness can have a significant impact on one's understanding of self, others, and society. When a counseling or clinical psychology graduate student experiences such hardships during the course of his or her clinical training, there can be several potential implications. The stressors of graduate school may exacerbate the emotional responses to an already painful situation. Additionally, clinical skill development can be negatively affected if the student has difficulty acknowledging how hardship influences his or her capacity to be an effective therapist. However, the same tribulations can also help new therapists to realize their inner strength, develop beneficial coping skills, and apply this knowledge when working with clients. Highlighted in this article are three cases of loss and hardship that underscore the importance of supportive clinical supervision, psychological hardiness, humor, and optimism during times of personal crises.Keywords: supervision, grief, training, clinical internship, counselor development The experience of death or debilitating illness is a salient issue for most clinical and counseling psychologists. The presence of death or illness in our own lives can make navigating the day-today demands of life and work difficult. Yet, in the presence of such extraordinary difficulties, we can continue to learn and grow by reconciling and integrating these painful experiences. Considering such issues is a process that not only affects us on a deeply personal level but can also affect the therapeutic work we do. If our own struggles are dealt with appropriately, these experiences can actually make therapy more powerful and dynamic. However, learning to use painful personal experiences with clients/patients is a high-level clinical skill that requires substantial insight, intensive training, and strength-based clinical supervision. Moreover, the clinical training experiences that typify graduate training programs use a developmental process whereby psychologists-in-training treat clients/patients who are appropriate for their level of training and then are able to gradually move on to more complex cases as clinical skills are mastered.An experience with death or debilitating illness at any point during the course of graduate-level clinical training presents both a potential obstacle and a source of tremendous growth, for it forces the novice psychologist to grapple with how personal issues affect his or her clinical work to a degree that is far beyond what is typically expected during the graduate training experience. We propose that it is the responsibility of students to identify how personal grief and loss impacts their clinical skills and to use the emotional pain to become better clinicians. This insight-oriented journey requires dialogue and introspection. These discussions should be facilitated by a supportive supervision process, peer support, and active self-reflection.This article first broadly examines the stressors related to graduate school as well as the gener...

Supervision is invaluable to a psychotherapist-in-training, aiding the developing clinician in consolidating skills, thinking ethically, and developing autonomy. Although many supervisory duties can be applied across treatment modality, there are specific variations of these duties that supervisors of couples therapy cases must consider. These include assuring trainees' understanding of ethical issues of fidelity and confidentiality related to both partners in the client dyad; evaluating trainees' competence to treat two clients simultaneously and to utilize couples-specific interventions; assessing how trainees' personal beliefs such as those related to religion, reproduction, and culture may influence views of norms within a romantic relationship; and tailoring supervisory techniques and processes to best address couples treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

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A behavioral health internship provides an unparalleled training experience for a Master’s level clinical trainee. This narrative essay highlights how one behavioral health intern was pushed to the next developmental stage of learning as he encountered a patient with a complex medical condition and a new mental health diagnosis. This article also shares the learner’s perspective on how both the patient and intentional systemic supervision fostered his professional growth.

The Problem: Interprofessional educational experiences are a requirement in pharmacy and counseling curricula. However, scheduling conflicts between professional programs and lack of administrative support create barriers for students who want to take a course in another healthcare program. Innovation: This pilot enabled a pharmacy student to participate in a counseling course for 8 weeks. The course “Integrated Healthcare” is a 3-credit required core-course in the Master of Arts in marriage and family therapy (MFT) program. It explores the connection between emotional, psychological and physical health, covering information on behavior change, psychopharmacology, and common ways in which mood and anxiety manifest in the body. Class activities were matched to pharmacy interprofessional standards, in addition to Interprofessional Collaborative Practice competencies (IPEC). Critical Analysis: All IPEC core competencies were achieved during this course. One pharmacy student and 18 counseling students helped one another understand the importance of their different roles in patient care. The course also established relationships between pharmacy and counseling faculty, paving the way for more interprofessional class experiences. Conclusion: This pilot integrating pharmacy and counseling students in a course demonstrates that administrative barriers can be overcome and collaborative learning benefit is achieved for everyone involved.   Article Type: Note