Program Philosophy of Training

Student Counseling Service supports the educational mission of Iowa State University by helping students enhance their academic and personal well-being. We actively promote emotional and social development through preventive, remedial, and advocacy interventions. We believe that training future professional psychologists creates an essential vitality in our agency and enhances the quality of our service to clients. All staff participate enthusiastically and actively in training appropriate to our specialties and experience. Therefore, while providing excellent services to clients, we maintain a very strong commitment to training.

Our philosophy of training is grounded in the practitioner-scholar mode, emphasizing "learning by doing" while consulting empirical literatures and conducting research in the clinical setting (Stoltenberg, Kashubeck-West, Biever, Patterson, & Welch, 2000). We offer an interactive process-oriented learning experience coupled with presentations of up-to-date research and theory. Interns practice and develop the multiple roles of a counseling center psychologist including individual, couples, and group therapy, training and supervision, assessment, research, and outreach/consultation. We are primarily preparing interns for practitioner careers in counseling centers and private practice, and secondarily for faculty positions.

The general staff orientation reflects the counseling psychology philosophy, which is characterized by a developmental perspective and proactive approach (Fretz & Simon, 1992). Likewise, with training, we offer a broad range of supervision and training experiences to fit the individual and shared developmental needs of the interns. To meet the shared needs of interns, group training experiences are sequential, cumulative, and graded in complexity. To meet the individual needs of interns, we grant interns considerable individual choice in determining their training priorities. We ask interns to indicate areas of known strengths as well as areas needing further refinement. Interns are then encouraged to make choices regarding their numerous training opportunities and responsibilities (for example: types of groups, outreaches, and choice of special emphasis areas). We tailor our training experience for each intern to develop a strong foundation for an emerging professional identity.

Woven throughout the training program is an appreciation for the diversity of all people. We continually examine our awareness of the rich diversity among ourselves and within the university community. Training and professional development opportunities help us explore how we react to racial, ethnic, gender, religious, sexual orientation, physical, age, and other differences. Our Diversity Statement reflects our commitment to diversity in its broadest sense.

We believe that the greatest growth is facilitated via reciprocal and ongoing feedback in a supportive climate. We expect interns to openly share their successes and challenges in their work with clients and on projects. Interns work together as a group, providing each other with supportive and challenging feedback. Staff members are also expected to share clinical and other work and be open to interns' feedback. Clinical supervisors attend to many levels of the intern's development - adjustment to the agency, clinical skills, career development, and "use of self" as an instrument of change. Supervisors consult with each other and the training director to relate insights into trainees' needs to offer the right balance of support and challenge.

Staff members strive to provide a collegial atmosphere in which interns are offered many opportunities to provide leadership. Interns work collaboratively with staff members and campus agencies to provide a variety of counseling and consultative services. As the year progresses, interns may assume increasingly independent roles in service provision. Ultimately, we seek to facilitate skill acquisition and professional maturity resulting in persons capable of self-regulated, ethical, and sophisticated work as psychologists.

Citations:

Stoltenberg, C.D., Kashubeck-West, S., Biever, J., Patterson, T. and Welch, I.D.  (2000).  Training models in counseling    psychology:  Scientist-practitioner versus practitioner-scholar.  The Counseling Psychologist, 28, (5), 622-640.

Fretz, B.R., & Simon, N.P.  (1992).  Professional issues in counseling psychology:  continuity, change, and challenge.  In Brown, S. and R. Lent (Eds) Handbook of Counseling Psychology, 2nd edition, 3-36, New York:  John Wiley and Sons.

 

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