Becoming a Therapist -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Opening Up Your Life to the Excitement of the Therapy and Counseling Professions -- Qualities for the Therapist/Counselor -- Key Quality 1: Enthusiasm Within Insecurity -- Key Quality 2: Courage -- Key Quality 3: Profound Empathy and Cultural Competence -- Key Quality 4: One-Way Helping Relationship Embedded in the Cycle of Caring -- Key Quality 5: Intensive Listening -- Key Quality 6: Embracing the Unknown, the Murky,and the Paradoxical as the Concrete -- Key Quality 7: Accepting and Managing the Public's Uncertainty about Us -- Key Quality 8: Energized by Asking Questions and Searching for the Truth -- Key Quality 9: Knowing Suffering and Going Beyond It -- Key Quality 10: Exciting to Be in the Novel Rather than Read It -- Key Quality 11: Signing Up for the Intense Will to Grow -- Key Quality 12: Addressing Personal Motives for the Work -- Key Quality 13: Wanting Meaning More than Money -- Key Quality 14: Energized by Integrity -- Key Quality 15: Learning to Be Very Patient -- Central Excitement of the Work -- To the Novice Practitioner-Welcome! -- Summary -- References -- 2 Novice Advantages -- Novice Advantage 1: Intensity and Enthusiasm -- How Important Is Therapist/Counselor Experience in Delivering Positive Client Outcome? -- Novice Advantage 2: Demographic Edge -- Novice Advantage 3: Newer Knowledge -- Novice Advantage 4: Closeness to One's Own Personal Suffering -- Summary -- References -- 3 The Curse of Ambiguity and Other Ills and What to Do About Them -- The Curse of Ambiguity -- About Mystery -- Example 1 -- Example 2 -- Example 3 -- Antidotes for the Curse of Ambiguity -- Emotional Roller Coaster -- One Session -- One Month of Practicum -- Antidotes for the Emotional Roller Coaster -- Trekking with a Defective Map.

Erosion of the Autopilot in Counseling and Therap y -- The Novice's Defective Map when Interacting with Clients: No Macro Theory Gives Micro Instructions -- Antidotes for Trekking with a Crude Map -- Where Is the Fault? -- Reflective Experience Is the Long-Term Answer -- Until Then, Reduce the Task -- Other F-Stop Solutions -- Glamorized Expectation -- What Is Idealistic? What Is Realistic? -- Antidotes to Glamorized Expectations -- Boundaried Generosity -- Too Little or Too Much Empathy? -- Antidotes to Insufficient Boundaried Generosity -- Importance of Colleagues -- Acute Need for Positive Mentoring and Supervision -- Impact of Negative Mentor and Supervisor Experiences -- Antidotes for the Novice Mentor Search -- Mature Adult as Novice -- Antidotes for the Ills of the Mature Adult as Student -- Summary -- References -- 4 Who Am I Becoming? : The Unfolding Practitioner Self -- Identity Development: What Does It Mean? -- Complications and Richness of Bicultural Identity Development -- Teacher Identity Development as a Parallel Process to Therapist/Counselor Identity Development -- Process of Internal Sculpturing -- Personal Identity as a Foundation for Professional Identity -- Overlap Between Personal Identity and Professional Identity in Therapy and Counseling Careers -- Try-Out Experiences Help Develop Practitioner Identity -- Talking It Out Helps Develop Our Practitioner Identity -- Summary -- References -- 5 Developing Habits of Culturally Competent Practice -- Importance of Culturally Competent Practice -- Three Studies -- Study 1: Lessons from Multicultural Master Therapists -- Study 2: Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity and Some Exemplars -- Study 3: Experts in Appreciating Cultural Diversity -- Recommendations for Training Programs -- Recommendations for Novice Practitioners -- Suggested Readings -- References.

6 Issues, Concerns, and Tips as Antidotes to Novice Stress -- When the Client Does Not Come Back -- All This Introspection Is Stirring Up My Inner World -- Feeling Incompetent -- Optimal Support-Challenge Balance Propels Positive Change -- Defining Success in Therapy and Counseling Seems Like Chasing a Mirage -- Experiencing the Client's Pain and Suffering -- High-Speed Movie -- This Is Not a Role-Play-This Is Real! This Is Exciting! This Is a Session! -- Not Getting Help -- Summary -- References -- 7 Becoming a Resilient Practitioner -- Introduction -- Caring for OurSelves -- Essential Resilient Practitioner Tasks -- Task 1: Lose One's Innocence About the Need to Assertively Develop Resiliency and Self-Care Skills -- Task 2: Develop Abundant Sources of Positive Energy -- Task 3: Relish the Joy and Meaning of the Work as a Positive Energy Source -- Task 4: Search for Empathy Balance -- Task 5: Develop Sustaining Measures of Success and Satisfaction -- Task 6: Create a Greenhouse at Work -- Task 7: Connect with Your Own Spirituality -- Task 8: Finding Balance to the Imbalance of Too Many One-Way Caring Relationships in One's Personal Life -- Task 9: Max Out the Body as a Source for Positive Energy -- Task 10: Long-Term Continual Focus on the Development of the Self -- Task 11: Have Fun and Be Playful -- Summary -- Skovholt Practitioner Professional Resiliency and Self-Care Inventory -- References -- 8 The Cycle of Caring -- Caring as Central in Therapy and Counseling Careers -- Empathetic Attachment Phase -- Attaching With Our "Underside of the Turtle" Side -- Optimal Attachment -- Difficulty in Attaching -- Active Involvement Phase -- Separating Well Phase -- Re-creation Phase -- Summary -- References -- 9 The Practitioner's Learning Triangle : Practice, Research/Theory, and Personal Life -- Purpose of This Chapter -- Intense Search for Answers.

Development of Personal Wisdom -- Learning Triangle as Epistemology -- Professional Practice as One Side of the Learning Triangle -- Academic Research as One Side of the Learning Triangle -- Personal Life as One Side of the Learning Triangle -- Three Sides of the Triangle Make a Whole -- Summary -- References -- 10 Path Toward Mastery : Phases and Themes of Development -- Introduction to the Practitioner's Path -- Phases of Therapist/Counselor Development -- Phase 1: Pretraining Phase -- Phase 2: Beginning Student Phase -- Phase 3: Advanced Student Phase -- Phase 4: Novice Professional Phase -- Phase 5: Experienced Professional Phase -- Phase 6: Senior Professional Phase -- Themes in Professional Development -- Summary -- References -- 11 Practitioner Mastery and Expertise -- Purpose of This Chapter -- General Characteristics of Experts -- 1. Experts Tend to Excel Mainly in Their Own Domain -- 2. Experts Perceive Larger, More Meaningful Patterns in Their Chosen Domain -- 3. Experts Are Faster Than Novices in Performing Domain Skills -- The Wish for an Expertise Injection -- 4. Experts Have Superior Memory -- 5. Experts See and Represent a Problem in Their Domain at a Deeper (More Principled) Level -- 6. Experts Spend a Great Deal of Time Analyzing a Problem Qualitatively -- 7. Experts Have Strong Self-Monitoring Skills -- Summary of the Seven Characteristics -- Stages of Expertise -- Novice Versus Expert Differences -- Carl Sagan as Example of an Expert -- Master Therapist Studies -- Defining the Master Therapist -- Portrait of the Master Therapist -- Some Important Central Characteristics -- Cognitive Central Characteristics -- Emotional Central Characteristics -- Relationship Central Characteristics -- Implications of The Master Therapist Portrait -- Other Studies of Master Therapists -- Passionately Committed Therapists.

Singapore Master Therapist Study -- Comparison Between the Minnesota and Singapore Master Therapists -- Ingredients for Mastery in Counseling and Therapy -- Relationship Oriented -- Drawn to Uncertainty -- Affectively Attuned to Others -- The Study of Mastery and Expertise Is Complicated -- Summary -- References -- 12 Vertical and Horizontal Nurturance for the Novice : Clinical Supervisors, and Many Other Peers -- Value of Vertical Relationships with Clinical Supervisors -- Catch-22 Dilemma for Novices as Supervisees -- Integrated Developmental Model -- Cultural Considerations and Clinical Supervision -- Summary of This Section -- Value of Horizontal Relationships: Peers, Classmates, Colleagues, and Friends -- Three Benefits of Horizontal Relationships -- Problems in Horizontal Relationships -- Upward Comparison -- Interpersonal Competition -- Limited Resources and Competition -- A Last Comment -- References -- 13 Worlds Apart : The Academic Research Culture and the Therapy Practice Culture and the Search for Common Space -- Purpose of This Chapter -- More on the Cultural Divide -- My Own Bicultural Professional Life -- Academic Research World as the First Culture for the New Therapy or Counseling Student -- Understanding Culture Differences Using Holland's Vocational Typology -- Contributions, Epistemology, and Reward Structure of the Research Culture -- Limitations of the Research Culture for Practice Knowledge -- Objectivism -- Materialism -- Universalism -- Contributions, Epistemology, and Reward Structure of the Practice Culture -- A Big Issue: Do Practitioners Learn and Become More Skilled Through Practice? -- Limitations of the Practice Culture for Practice Knowledge -- Convergence Between the Cultures of Science and Practice -- Summary -- References -- 14 Epilogue : Promise and Meaning of the Work -- Novice Challenges and Solutions.

Bigger Picture of Hope, Meaning, and Excitement.