CNS 745b: Internship 2 Self-Evaluation

My past fourteen weeks as an internship student at Daymark Recovery Services have

been fulfilling, insightful, and challenging (in the past sense of the word). I feel that this site has

given me a broad range of experiences, clients, and conditions to work with. One of the most

important lessons that I’ve learned from the clinicians and clients at my site is the importance of

being aware of your assumptions and biases. Very early on, I would hear other clinicians make

broad statements about populations that didn’t quite sit right with me. For instance, clinicians

will frequently refer to clients in our DBT groups as not having any skills, not being able to

process events, and a few other traits with negative connotations. Having a sister with Borderline

Personality Disorder who does have skills and has benefited from processing the trauma in her

past, this was one of the first moments where I realized something about how I wanted to

practice. First and foremost, I want to be able to get to know my clients as individuals, free of

preconceived notions or general biases. To think of a client struggling with addiction as just an

alcoholic or a drug addict ignores everything in their life that led them to this point. To think of a

client with Borderline Personality Disorder as just someone with a mood disorder, also ignores

all the pieces that make up the puzzle of who they are.

The second thing that my time at my internship site taught me is more about the

theoretical orientations I will likely lean toward in my practice. While the DBT groups I co-

facilitate and my supervisor have shown me the benefits of DBT techniques and skills (especially

with adolescents), it also struck me as a bit impersonal. I’m not naturally drawn toward the rigid

and structured methods of counseling. My internship experience has gone to further this

preference. I enjoy a person-centered focus that is more client driven and I love exploring social

justice focuses (especially feminism). I also have found that I really love Gestalt therapy. I think
this therapy and its techniques allow for confrontation in a way that is still supportive to the

client. However, working with clients and learning from other clinicians has taught me about

how to integrate techniques from other theories, even if I don’t find myself wanting to use that

theory as a foundation for my sessions. For example, I have found using chain analyses from

DBT to be really helpful for helping clients understand their reactions to events, even while I’m

in the process of using motivational interviewing or brief solution focused therapy.

Finally, in a similar vein to helping me find the theoretical orientations I don’t really

mesh with and ones that I enjoy, my internship experience has taught me more about what I’m

looking for in future employment. Even though I really have appreciated the opportunity to work

predominantly with the group therapy modality, the internship experience has taught me that this

isn’t something I really want to specialize in in the future. I definitely see the benefit of group

therapy and have witnessed several sessions that were nearly textbook perfect in regards to

clients coming together to support others and give advice. However, I really feel that individual

sessions or groups that are more psychotherapy in focus than psychoeducational are more in my

wheelhouse. I really enjoy the opportunity to dive deep into an individual’s motivations, values,

past experiences, and beliefs – which isn’t something that is usually feasible in the group setting.

I wouldn’t be opposed to working with groups in the future, but I think I’d thrive with more of a

balance.

In terms of course objectives, I think I met or exceeded all of the listed areas (both for

CACREP and the Wake Forest Counseling Department). I was able to analyze policies,

schedules, forms, and procedures of professional counseling organizations by learning about my

internship site and its standards. I conducted myself as a counseling professional, Daymark

Recovery’s set policies and procedures. I conducted myself based on the established professional
counseling ethics and related laws that we have learned about in our courses. I demonstrated the

ability to implement counseling and consultation skills related to diversity, advocacy, and social

justice issues by interacting with clients from all backgrounds, acknowledging and working on

my biases, and attending trainings through my site. I demonstrated and performed basic

counseling and interviewing skills while working with individual clients. I performed basic skills

(such as reflecting, non-verbal cues, minimal encouragers, etc.) when counseling, consulting, or

collaborating with individuals and groups. I complete necessary client-related documentation

through NextGen and NCTOPPS (the resources utilized by my site). I demonstrate ability to

respond to crisis situations or personal traumas, such as following up with clients after group,

making MET (Daymark’s crisis team) referrals, and making crisis plans with clients. I am able to

describe the various professional roles performed by counselors and perform in the various roles

held by professional counselors.

In terms of the course objectives, I believe that my strengths lie in a few areas. First and

foremost, I think I do well using many of the basic skills. In particular, I feel that my non-verbal

cues, my minimal encouragers, and my reflections of content and meaning are pretty strong. I

will use these as the foundation for my upcoming counseling sessions. However, I can always

improve in this area and I definitely want to work on my reflections of feeling. I noticed in my

sessions and case presentation recordings (both this semester and in previous semesters) that I

tend to skip over reflections of feeling and launch into reflections of meaning. I am doing much

better this semester than I have in the past, but I still think that pointing about the client’s

emotions or feelings in the moment would resonate with that individual and could allow for

deeper exploration of the topic at hand. I believe that another one of my strengths is completing

client-related documentation, particularly that I am very adept at the software we use and that I
stay up to date on the forms that need submitted or editing. On the other hand, I would love to

improve my crisis response skills. I’ve always had backup in these situations (usually my

supervisor) and I would like more experience either observing crisis response or perhaps

practicing crisis response with another clinician. I want to be prepared should I ever need to

complete a crisis plan by myself or help a client who is in danger.

For my learning goals that I set for this internship experience, there were definitely some

mixed results. For the most part, I succeeded in achieving the overall goals, but didn’t

necessarily measure the goals the way I stated I would or finish the goal within the time-frame

that I set out. My first goal was to learn more about specific counseling theories to identify my

primary approach to counseling so I can learn specific techniques from those orientations to

assist my clients and conceptualize their cases. This was a goal I also had last semester, however,

I chose to be less rigid in my approach this time around. Last semester I stated that I would read

several chapters of the SAGE Encyclopedia of Counseling a week. This semester, I allowed the

learning to occur more naturally by reading sources that drew my interest – Dr. Yalom’s “The

Gift of Therapy,” Dr. Perls’ “Gestalt Verbatim,” and Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” My

second goal was to increase the amount of reflections of feeling that I make in my individual and

group counseling sessions. This was an area in which I feel I was pretty. I kept tallies during my

sessions and listened for this type of reflection in my recordings. In addition, I went back to our

triad recordings to listen for these reflections. My third goal was to learn more about Dialectical

Behavior Therapy (DBT) because it is not a theory I naturally find myself drawn to, but it is

utilized frequently by my internship site and the techniques may be useful to future clients. I was

able to co-facilitate a weekly adolescent DBT group for part of the semester and increase my

learning in that way. I also read “The High Conflict Couple” which is a DBT approach to
working with couples or individuals struggling with interpersonal relationships. My fourth and

final goal was to engage in self-care for 30 minutes at least three times per week to increase my

ability to be resilient in the face of adversity and improve my capacity to help others by helping

myself first. While I did increase the frequency of my self-care, I also chose some activities that

weren’t necessarily all that relaxing. For example, I loved spending time with my foster kittens

and they made me laugh, but they were sometimes stressful as well. Nor did I keep track of my

self-care in a journal.

Overall, I’ve had a very fulfilling internship experience and I look forward to seeing what

my career as a counselor brings. I hope to continue these goals long into the future and to

continue to find goals that I feel will benefit me as a counselor and my clients. I will seek to

continue approaching situations with an open mind that yearns for new information and

approaches. I am very excited for the future.