My Expectations for Practicum Students
(reviewed 2-4-04)

The nature of formal education changes as one moves from the first years of elementary school through a graduate education. As a practicum student you stand with each of your feet in very different worlds. On the one side you are treated as a student, given assignments, expected to be learning new knowledge and skills, rewarded for being open to correction and feedback, and graded on your performance. On the other side you are treated as a professional, given responsibilities for the well being of clients, relied upon to behave competently in the face of crises, expected to conform to the ethical and legal guidelines of your profession and the agency you serve. It has been confusing for all of us. A variety of poetic metaphors attempt to capture the essence of your experience--"Wearing two hats." "serving different masters." "role conflict" "status incongruity." Professional education and training in human service professions is a unique experience, especially in those applied experiences grouped under the designation "practicum."

At the same time, for most of us practicum was our favorite course. At last we were given an opportunity to put into practice our knowledge and skills, to learn from our own experiences and those of our clients. Another trip to the library, a few less hours of sleep, another consultation sought; all seemed more reasonable and necessary when it was for "my client." Practicum students usually lack experience, may lack knowledge, but often perform very credibly for their clients--because of their interest, motivation, and level of energy.

I expect you to bring these to your work with clients: high energy, high motivation, high investment in the well being of your clients, dedication to learning the most that you can for your benefit and the benefit of those you serve. I cannot help you gain these attributes. If you have had them in the past and bad experiences have blocked them off for you, something can be done about this; but the basic source is within you. If working with clients is not something that drives you to work harder than almost anything else, perhaps you need to consider carefully your career direction. If you have these attributes, then everything else is possible. You can learn about disorders you don't understand yet, you can learn new skills and techniques, you can experiment with theoretical orientations and therapeutic styles.

I expect you to serve your clients. Their welfare is more important than your own; this is what it means to be a therapist. I expect you to behave within the ethical guidelines of our profession and the legal statues of our state and nation. These are not major demands for the vast majority of you, but they are absolute. I will not tolerate deviation and will enforce these expectations. You are privileged to occupy positions of authority and influence, you must act so as to justify this assignment. It is not a small thing to have another human being expecting help from you; your behavior must show you realize this and accept the responsibility that goes with our work.

Learn everything you can, learn every day, learn from every client you meet, learn from every session. This is how you become good, this is how you can keep becoming better. To continue learning, throughout your life, is the basic imperative of doing good psychotherapy.

Related to learning is a value for the truth. Lie as little as possible if you want to be a good psychotherapist, especially to yourself. Whatever you believe about lying from a moral perspective, as an interpersonal strategy it is very costly. Most of you lie pretty poorly, one of the few behavior deficits that I'm not too concerned about. The only person you may be particularly good at fooling is yourself; this is an unfortunate competency. Self deception is the basis for most of the really bad and costly mistakes made in psychotherapy. You have to be careful sometimes about the truth with your clients--the truth can on occasion be almost as destructive as deception. With yourself, in the privacy of your own soul, I recommend a rather ruthless honesty. It will help keep you and your clients safe, even when the lessons learned from me and your other instructions fail you.

Consider carefully your values, your beliefs, your ideals; these define who you are. Who you are is part of what you bring to counseling. I do not want you imposing these upon clients, but I don't want you pretending to be completely neutral about things that matter in the world (see last paragraph). My clients know I value their lives--I would act to prevent a suicide attempt even if it was not allowed by the confidentiality act. I am fortunate in that most of my values are mirrored by the broad ethics and laws governing our profession. Related to this--it is not necessary that you attempt to become an Al House clone to do well in my section or under my supervision. I want you to learn some techniques and try out some conceptualizations; but the final choice is yours. I do a pretty good Al House; you need to start learning how to be the best therapist you can be.

Finally, as in much human activity, there are some housekeeping requirements. You need to tape your sessions, get these tapes into supervision, take care of the paperwork required at the Student Counseling Center or Psychological Services Center, etc. You need to do all these things, if you don't it will interfere with the time we have for you to learn, then I will be unhappy. You need to make the best use possible of large group practicum time, small group practicum time, and individual supervision time. These are resources for you to make use of; if you waste them it is to your detriment and the detriment of your clients. Waste makes me unhappy, another one of my values.

For me, psychotherapy has always been about learning. Our clients learning better ways to cope with the challenges of life, our learning how to help clients better, the profession and society learning to understand more clearly how human lives go wrong or right. I have found few experiences in life more satisfying and rewarding than participating in this learning. I hope it is a pleasure you can share with me. I look forward to seeing you in class and in my office.