Counselor candidates’ experiences regarding counselling supervision

Abstract

Supervision process, which plays a critical role in the professional development of counselor candidates, is an important part of counselor education. In this sense, an increasing number of studies have focused on understanding the supervision process in recent years. Thus, this research, designed as a case study, aimed to investigate counselor candidates’ experiences during individual counseling supervision process. The study group included ten female and five male senior students in guidance and counseling undergraduate program. The participants carried out six to eight individual counseling sessions with their clients under supervision. During the supervision process, both individual and group supervision sessions were carried out and the supervisees took feedback from the supervisors and their peers. Study data were collected with an evaluation form containing 11 open-ended questions to obtain student experiences. Content analysis results yielded four themes: a) challenges, b) facilitative elements, c) professional and personal development, and d) suggestions. The findings were discussed in the light of existing literature and recommendations for counseling supervision were presented.