Background: While counsellor education becomes increasingly culturally diverse, little is known about international trainees' experiences of training. Objective: The present study explores one aspect of training, namely clinical practice from the perspective of international, non‐native speaking trainees. In particular, this paper focuses on the challenges this group encounters when practicing in a second language. Methodology: Semi‐structured interviews with four non‐native English‐speaking trainees were conducted and analysed following the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results: Findings suggest that participants encounter practical difficulties related to their non‐native/foreign identity in practice, such as problems with articulate self‐expression and understanding the client's speech. These difficulties generate anxiety and impact on the trainees' confidence. Conclusions and implications for counsellor training: This study elucidates language as a fundamental aspect of culture, and identifies second language use as a significant source of difference in counselling practice. This paper highlights the need for attention to linguistic diversity and for appropriate support during counsellor education. This will improve international trainees' experiences of training, but also enhance all trainees' understanding of difference, resulting in better service provision for the community.

holds an MSc in Counselling Studies from the University of Edinburgh and is currently a doctoral researcher focused on Family Secrets within the School of Health at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include writing as inquiry, collaborative writing and performative methodologies. Recently, she has become interested in how technologies such as blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram will impact and influence qualitative research methodologies.Liz Taylor is a research fellow in ECRED, Edinburgh Centre for Research on the Experience of Dementia at the University of Edinburgh. Liz The overall focus of her research interest is the experience of people living with dementia and in engaging people with dementia in research and the co-production of knowledge. DISCOMBOBULATIONS AND TRANSITIONS 2 AbstractWe live in a digitalised world, where social media have become an integral part of scholarly life. Digital tools like blogs can facilitate various research-related activities, from recruitment, to data collection, to communication of research findings. In this paper we analyse our experience of blogging to suggest that they provide a useful resource for qualitative researchers working with reflexive accounts of personal experience. Through our personal story of engaging with blogging while travelling abroad to participate in a conference, we explore how we used the blog in different ways to concretise transitional processes, to engage in public storytelling, and to form a network of relationships (self, others and blog). We argue that the technology of blogging is particularly suited to creating sensemaking narratives from liminal or discombobulating experiences; and highlight the usefulness of understanding the production of data through blogging as culturally located within networks of relationships and normative discourses.

International counselling trainees' perceived benefits of intercultural clinical practice. Counsellor education in Britain is steadily turning into a multicultural environment. The limited relevant literature focuses on the challenges that 'culturally different' and international trainees may encounter. The aim of this paper is to elucidate a rarely exposed aspect of international counselling trainees' training experience, namely, the benefits they identify in practising across languages and cultures during placement. The illustration of this positive perspective is pertinent to the profession, as it expands existing knowledge on international trainees' experience of clinical practice and it challenges the prevailing conceptualisation of this situation as potentially problematic. It is argued that a shift towards a more holistic understanding of this population's counselling experiences is likely to have particularly useful implications for counsellor education and the profession more broadly.

Located within a context of intercultural counselling research, this paper highlights the pertinence of the researcher’s reflexivity and cultural awareness in relation to research relationships. It draws on an excerpt between a white European interviewer and an Asian trainee counsellor discussing the latter’s experience of intercultural counselling practice. A reflexive analysis of a short passage aims to demonstrate how explicit negotiation of cultural difference within the interview setting advanced the researcher’s understanding of the participant’s experience, which was being investigated. The interrelated challenges, but also the importance of the interviewer’s preparedness to explore power imbalances in the research relationship are also examined, as are some key limitations of such endeavours. This paper underlines the usefulness of counselling skills in qualitative research, hoping to function as an invitation for more practitioner involvement in therapeutic inquiry.

Background The demanding nature of counsellor education necessitates support provisions for trainees which promote learning and development. While clinical and academic supervision, as well as personal therapy, can be important sources of support and learning, they are targeted at specific aspects of the trainee experience. Aim In this study, we examine the need for additional provisions that are integrative, phronetic and, although related to core training, separate from it, allowing trainees to bring together theory, personal experience and practice in a safe space. We present a study investigating student and staff experiences of using a system of ‘Personal Tutorials’ designed to provide phronetic and integrative support, which is in operation at our institution. Our study sought to explore the ways in which students made use of this system and what helped or hindered them in using it integratively. Methodology Focus groups were conducted with students, core staff and Personal Tutors involved in this provision. Data were analysed following a reflective team‐based approach (Siltanen, Willis & Scobie, 2008). Findings Overall, trainees appreciated having a dedicated space to explore their learning with a nonassessing tutor and used this provision in a number of ways that advanced their personal and professional development. Implications An external Personal Tutor seems to be providing trainees with an additional phronetic source of support that balances individual and group learning and advances the overall training experience.