Counsellor identity development : an authoethnographic account of emergent counsellor identity. (2018)

Type of Content
Theses / DissertationsThesis Discipline
CounsellingDegree Name
Master of CounsellingPublisher
University of CanterburyLanguage
EnglishCollections
Abstract
In New Zealand counselling degree programmes there is a focus on skill development within social learning environments, yet there is limited autoethnographic research exploring the identity development of trainee and beginning counsellors within social learning systems. This autoethnographic research uses Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice (CoP) framework to show how practices within social learning systems influenced my own identity development as a counsellor, and how the reflective and reflexive practices of supervision, poetry reading, and meditation, enabled counter-narratives to emerge, which enabled me to develop and/or transform my identity as a counsellor.
Counselling social learning systems enabled me to negotiate the meaning of practices, and develop an identity of competence, an identity of participation, and construct a future identity as a counsellor. Some counselling social learning systems were very challenging and within them I developed an identity of non-participation, and felt powerless and incompetent. Reflective and reflexive practices enabled me to reexamine my experiences in social learning systems and consequently I was able to develop and/or transform my identity as a counsellor. Through supervision and the introspective practices of meditation and reading of poetry I strengthened an identity of competence, increased my awareness of how I was being influenced by social learning systems and how my own practices influenced them in return, and was able to view situations from changed perspectives. My identity as a counsellor emerged from the dynamic interplay between experiences in social learning systems, and reflective and reflexive practices.
Rights
All Rights ReservedRelated items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Re-imagining the posthuman in counsellor education : entanglements of matter and meaning in the performative enactments of counsellor-in-training identities.
Barraclough, Shanee Joanne (University of Canterbury, 2017)Limited research is available which directly investigates the lived experience of counsellors-in-training, and how it shapes both what it means to become a counsellor, and counsellor education. Conceptualisations of this ... -
One pākehā counsellor’s journey towards bicultural competence.
Winder, Louise Maree (University of Canterbury, 2021)This research explores my experiences during a three-year period of learning about tikanga Māori and developing my competence and confidence with counselling in a biculturally-respectful manner. I had two key motives for ... -
De-centring the autonomous subject: different beings and becomings emerging from place relations for trainee counsellors
Barraclough, S.J. (University of Canterbury. School of Health Sciences, 2014)My aim in this presentation is to share some aspects of my own rhizomatic research journey, in a potentially rhizomatic presentation, that is ‘proceeding from the middle, coming and going, rather than (necessarily) starting ...