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Titles in Counseling and Professional Identity series

Watson, Wong, Duan, Wright,


Sangganjanavanich, Counseling Conyne, Parsons, Counseling Becoming a Research Tang, Career Scott,
Introduction to Assessment Group Becoming Parsons, Individuals Multiculturally Methods Development Counselor Zhang,
Professional and Work a Skilled Counseling Through the Competent for and as Field
CACREP Standards Counseling Evaluation Leadership Counselor Theory Life Span Counselor Counseling Counseling Consultant Experience
1. PROFESSIONAL 1a 1j 1b 1b 1j 1j 1j 1j 1b 1b 1b
ORIENTATION 1b 1j 1d 1j 1j 1c
AND ETHICAL 1d 1e 1d
PRACTICE 1e 1j 1e
1f 1f
1g 1g
1h 1h
1i 1i
1j 1j
2. SOCIAL AND 2c 2g 2d 2b 2c 2a 2c 2g 2g 2d 2d
CULTURAL 2f 2e 2c 2e 2b 2e 2g
DIVERSITY 2g 2g 2g 2g 2c 2f
2d 2g
2e
2g
3. HUMAN 3f 3b 3a 3d 3e
GROWTH AND 3b 3e
DEVELOPMENT 3c
3d
3e
3f
3g
4. CAREER 4f 4a 4c 4b
DEVELOPMENT 4b 4c
4c 4e
4d 4g
4e
4f
4g
5. HELPING 5a 5b 5a 5b 5b 5b 5b 5b 5c
RELATIONSHIPS 5b 5c 5b 5c 5e 5c 5c 5d
5c 5d 5c 5d 5f 5e
5f 5e 5d 5e 5g 5f
5g 5g 5h 5g
5h
6. GROUP WORK 6a 6d
6b 6e
6c
6d
6e
7. ASSESSMENT 7a 7b 7b 7f 7c 7g
7b 7d
7c 7e
7d
7e
7f
7g
8. RESEARCH AND 8a 8d
PROGRAM 8b 8e
EVALUATION 8c 8f
8d
8e
Counseling and
Professional Identity
Series Editors: Richard D. Parsons, PhD, and Naijian Zhang, PhD

Becoming a Skilled Counselor—Richard D. Parsons and Naijian Zhang


Research Methods for Counseling: An Introduction—Robert J. Wright
Group Work Leadership: An Introduction for Helpers—Robert K. Conyne
Introduction to Professional Counseling—Varunee Faii Sangganjanavanich and Cynthia
Reynolds
Counseling Theory: Guiding Reflective Practice—Richard D. Parsons and Naijian Zhang
Counselor as Consultant—David A. Scott, Chadwick W. Royal, and Daniel B. Kissinger
Counseling Assessment and Evaluation: Fundamentals of Applied Practice—Joshua C. Watson
and Brandé Flamez
Counseling Individuals Through the Lifespan—Daniel W. Wong, Kimberly R. Hall,
Cheryl A. Justice, and Lucy Wong Hernandez
Becoming a Multiculturally Competent Counselor—Changming Duan and Chris Brown
Ethical Decision Making for the 21st Century Counselor—Donna S. Sheperis, Michael Kocet,
and Stacy Henning
Career Development and Counseling: Theory and Practice in a Multicultural World—Mei Tang
and Jane Goodman
Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional—Naijian Zhang and Richard
D. Parsons
Field Experience
Transitioning from Student
to Professional
For information: Copyright  2016 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.


Acquisitions Editor: Kassie Graves
Editorial Assistant Carrie Montoya
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Marketing Manager: Shari Countryman 15 16 17 18 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Field Experience
Transitioning from Student
to Professional

Naijian Zhang
West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Richard D. Parsons
West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Brief Contents

Editors' Preface: Introduction to the Series xvi

Authors' Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxii

Chapter 1 Field Experience as Formative to Professional Identity 1

Chapter 2 Matching Self to Site 24

Chapter 3 From the Ideal to the Real 58

Chapter 4 The Ethics of Practice: More than Knowing, Being 82

Chapter 5 Reflecting on Practice 107

Chapter 6 Growing Through Supervision 134

Chapter 7 Multicultural Counseling in Practice 163

Chapter 8 Crisis Prevention and Intervention: Suicide


and Homicide 191

Chapter 9 Reducing Risk 214

Chapter 10 Documentation and Record Keeping 233

Chapter 11 Termination and Closure 258

Chapter 12 Self-Care and Self-Protection—Necessary for All


Counselors 282

Chapter 13 Transition From Practice to Career 315

Chapter 14 Transitions: Self as Counselor 342

Index 363

About the Authors 374



Detailed Contents

Editors' Preface: Introduction to the Series xvi

Authors' Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxii

Chapter 1 Field Experience as Formative to Professional Identity 1


Field Experience: A Unique Learning Experience 2
Shift in Focus: From “Knowing” to “Doing” 2
Shift from Other- to Self-Taught 3
Increased Independence and Self-Direction 3
Focus on Outcomes Versus Grades 5
Seeking Evaluation and Soliciting Corrective Feedback 6
Shift From Ideal to Real 7
Shifting Identity Focus: From Self-as-Student to
Self-as-Emerging-Professional 9
Field Work: Fostering an Emerging Professional Identity 9
Counselors: A Collective Identity 10
Shared Values and Perspectives 10
Developmental Perspective 11
Wellness Perspective 12
Prevention 14
Primary Prevention 14
Secondary Prevention 14
Tertiary Prevention 15
Empowerment and Advocacy 16
Nurturing Your Professional Identity 19
Postscript 20
Keystones 22
Additional Resources 22
References 22
Chapter 2 Matching Self to Site 24
It Starts With Self-Appraisal 25
Core Knowledge and Skills 25
Professional Orientation 25
Human Growth and Development 26
Social and Cultural Foundations 26
Helping Relationship 27
Groups 27
Lifestyle and Career Development 27
Appraisal and Assessment 28
Research and Evaluation 28
Beyond the Core: Specialty Knowledge and Skills 36
Credentialing Specialties 37
Assessing Field Placement Options 45
Site Characteristics: Specifics to Consider 46
Accreditation 46
Mission 47
Population Served 49
Services Provided 50
Models and Theories 50
Issues Addressed 50
What to Expect 51
Level of Responsibility 51
Site Supervisor 52
Theoretical Orientation 52
Training and Experience 53
Comfort and Compatibility 53
Matching Self to Site: Targeting Professional Development 54
Keystones 55
Additional Resources 56
Web Based 56
Print Based 56
References 56
Chapter 3 From the Ideal to the Real 58
Knowing the Ideal 59
Ideal: Defined by the Profession 59
Ideal: Roles and Function in Line With Mission 64
Performance Assessment: Suggesting Priorities 64
Role and Function in Service of the Mission 65
The Real Is Often Less Than Ideal 69
Even Interns Can Effect Change and Define Roles 74
Expert Power 75
Informational Power 76
To Get Much . . . Much Is Expected 79
Keystones 80
Additional Resources 81
References 81
Chapter 4 The Ethics of Practice: More than Knowing, Being 82
The Need and Value of Professional Ethics 83
The What: In Principle 91
Autonomy 91
Confidentiality 93
Right to Terminate 93
Nonmaleficence 95
Beneficence 97
Justice 100
Fidelity 102
From the Ideal to the Real 104
Keystones 104
Additional Resources 105
Web Based 105
Print Based 105
References 106
Chapter 5 Reflecting on Practice 107
Reflecting on Practice: Case Conceptualization 108
Reflecting in Practice: Guiding Moment-to-Moment Decisions 118
Reflective Practice: Supporting Efficacy and Accountability 122
Reflection: for Professional Development 124
Assessment 125
From Assessment to Development 128
Step 1: Self-Assessment 128
Step 2: Identification of Goals 128
Step 3: Identification of Resources 129
Action Steps 130
Keystones 132
Additional Resources 132
Web Based 132
Print Based 133
References 133
Chapter 6 Growing Through Supervision 134
Counseling Supervision 135
What Is Counseling Supervision? 135
Why Is Counseling Supervision Necessary and Required? 136
When and How Often Is Counseling Supervision Conducted? 137
Expectations of Counseling Supervision 138
Forms of Counseling Supervision 144
Classroom Versus On-Site Supervision 144
Individual Versus Group Supervision 144
Process and Content of Supervision 145
Audio- and Videotape and Case Presentation 145
Case Conceptualization 147
Role-Play 147
Feedback and Evaluation 150
Counseling Supervision Models 151
Issues and Dilemmas in Supervision 152
Conflicts in Supervisory Relationships 152
Resolving Conflicts in Supervisory Relationships 155
Boundaries: Supervision Versus Therapy 156
Transference and Countertransference 156
Supervision and Multiculturalism 158
Transitioning From Student to Professional
Counselor in Supervision 159
Keystones 160
Additional Resources 160
Web Based 160
Print Based 160
References 160

Chapter 7 Multicultural Counseling in Practice 163


Multiculturalism in Counseling 164
Issues in Multicultural Counseling 166
Ethics and Working With Multicultural Clients 167
Multicultural Counseling Competence 171
Counseling Competence Versus Multicultural
Counseling Competence 172
A Model Guiding the Development of Competency 173
Developing Multicultural Counseling Competence 174
Counselor Awareness of Own Cultural Values and Biases 174
Counselor Awareness of Client’s Worldview 178
Culturally Appropriate Intervention Strategies 182
Multicultural Counseling Competence and Professional Identity 185
Keystones 187
Additional Resources 187
Web Based 187
Audio-Visual Materials 187
Print Based 188
References 188
Chapter 8 Crisis Prevention and Intervention:
Suicide and Homicide 191
The Nature of Crisis and Crisis Intervention 192
Phases of Crisis and Counselor Response 193
Acute Phase 193
Outward Adjustment Phase 193
Integration Phase 194
Suicide 195
Myths About Suicide 195
Identifying Risk: Common Characteristics of Suicide 196
Assessment: The First Step in Intervention 199
Document 205
When Harm Is Other Directed 205
Prevalence and Potential for Violence 205
Predictors of Violent Behavior 206
Assessment: the First Step 206
Step Two: Intervention 206
Step Three: Following Up 208
AIDS: A Special Challenge 208
Site Policy on Crisis Procedures 210
Keystones 211
Additional Resources 211
Web Based 211
Print Based 212
References 212

Chapter 9 Reducing Risk 214


The Risk of Physical Harm 215
Reducing the Risk 215
Indicators of Potential Violence 215
Preventive Measures 218
De-escalation 218
Reducing Legal Risks 219
Confidentiality 220
Identify the Client 222
Respect Client’s Autonomy 223
Professional Boundaries 224
Boundary Crossing 225
Boundary Violations 226
Practice Within Competence 227
Document, Document, and Then Document 228
Postscript 229
Keystones 231
Additional Resources 231
Web Based 231
Print Based 231
References 232
Chapter 10 Documentation and Record Keeping 233
Purpose of Documentation and Record Keeping 234
Standard of Care 234
Communication 234
Desirable Defense against Litigation 235
Ethical and Legal Ramifications 235
The “What” of Case Documentation 237
Treatment Plans 238
Progress Notes: A Fundamental and Practical Form of Recording 239
Recommendations for Case Notes Writing and Record Keeping 241
The “How,” or Format, of Case Documentation 243
SOAP Notes 244
Subjective 244
Objective 244
Assessment 245
Plan 245
Individual Psychotherapy Session Note (IPSN) 248
Date, Assessment, and Plan (DAP) 251
Data (Description) 252
Assessment (Analysis) 252
Plan 252
Description, Assessment, Response, and Treatment Plan (DART) 253
Description 253
Assessment 254
Response 254
Treatment Plan 254
Concluding Thoughts 255
Keystones 256
Additional Resources 256
Web Based 256
Print Based 256
References 257

Chapter 11 Termination and Closure 258


Terminating the Counseling Relationship 259
Counseling Termination Defined 259
An End That Starts at the Beginning 259
The Ethics of Termination 260
Competence 261
Values 262
Appropriateness 263
Process 263
Factors Involved in Appropriate Termination 264
Challenges to Effective and Ethical Termination 267
Termination Due to Lack of Progress 268
Termination Due to Being Out of Area of Competence 268
Termination Due to Fee Issue 269
Termination Due to Counselor’s or Client’s Life Circumstances 271
Transferring Clients to Another Counselor: A Special Form of
Termination 274
Steps Toward Effective and Ethical Termination 275
Terminating Other Relationships at Internship 277
Terminating Your Supervisory Relationship 278
Keystones 279
Additional Resources 280
Web Based 280
Print Based 280
References 280
Chapter 12 Self-Care and Self-Protection—Necessary
for All Counselors 282
Counseling: Challenging the Well-Being of the Counselor 283
Burnout 285
Counselors at Risk 286
The Unfolding of Burnout 287
Preventing Burnout 288
Increase Self-Awareness 288
Engage in Healthy Life Habits 289
Nutrition 290
Exercise 290
Social Engagement 290
Nurturing an Inner Life 291
Play and Be Playful 291
Work Management 291
Recharge 291
Compassion Fatigue 292
Symptoms 293
Risk Factors 295
Assessing the Risk 296
Reducing the Risk 303
Work Setting 303
Lifestyle Adjustments 304
Intervening When Necessary 305
Intentionality, Recognition, and Acceptance 305
Connection 305
Anxiety Management/Self-Soothing 306
Self-Care 306
What Next? 306
Keystones 310
Additional Resources 311
Web Based 311
Print Based 311
References 312

Chapter 13 Transition From Practice to Career 315


Connection Between Internship and Career 316
Apprenticeship: Stepping Into the World of the Professional 316
Preparation for Employment 317
Self-Evaluation 317
Résumé 320
Cover Letter 325
Letters of Recommendation 326
Job Interviews 328
Phone/Online Video Interview 331
On-Site Interview 332
Job Interview Questions 334
Employment for International Students: Special
Opportunity/Special Challenge 336
Job Offers and Your Decision 336
Placement Resources 337
Networking 337
Advanced Education 337
Doctoral Programs 337
Letters of Recommendation 338
Official Transcript 339
Personal Statement 339
Financial Support 340
Postscript 340
Keystones 340
Additional Resources 341
Web Based 341
Print Based 341
References 341
Chapter 14 Transitions: Self as Counselor 342
Identity 343
To Be a Counselor 345
A Closer Look at Defining Characteristics 347
A Development Perspective 347
A Wellness Perspective 348
A Prevention Perspective 350
An Empowerment Perspective 351
Professional Identity: Both Common and Unique 353
Responding to the Calling 354
Through the Lens of a Counselor 354
Professional Ethics: From Knowing to Valuing 355
Contributing to the Professional Community 357
With Pride 358
Keystones 360
Additional Resources 361
Web Based 361
Print Based 361
References 361
Index 363

About the Authors 374



Editors’ Preface:
Introduction to
the Series

Counseling and Professional Identity in the 21st Century

The primary purpose of field experience is to assist counseling students in learning


how to apply the principles, knowledge, and skills they have learned from books and
in classrooms to real work situations. In this integration process, counseling students
are prepared to achieve their lifelong career goals. For this reason, field experience in
counseling is considered by counseling professionals and students as the most critical
component of counselor training. In this training process, counseling students will not
only enhance their personal and professional development in guided and controlled
experiences with counseling professionals in the real world, but also prepare them-
selves for their employment and career. The book Field Experience: Transitioning From
Student to Professional is a vehicle that will help you move from where you are now as
a counseling student to where you want to be as an emerging counseling professional.
Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional is a road map of this
transitional process and the valuable role played by one’s field experience. This book
discusses the ideal, as presented within the classroom, and the real, experienced in
practice. It depicts how a counseling student becomes an emerging professional in his
or her field experience and helps the reader conceptualize the occurrence of such tran-
sitioning. Most important, the book provides a unique perspective for counseling
students to see where they were, where they are, and where they will be as a result of
the process of their field experience.
Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional helps counseling stu-
dents identify those areas of professional competency needing development and thus
serving as targets for professional growth to be achieved during their field experience.
These areas include but are not limited to clinical supervision, multiculturalism, eth-
ics in practice, crisis intervention, reducing risk for self, documentation and record

xvi
Editors’ Preface ❖ xvii

keeping, self-care, and termination. The book also outlines the challenges and obsta-
cles counseling students may face while they are developing their professional com-
petence at the final stage of their training.
Finally, Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional is the book
that assists counseling students in developing their professional identity while they are
doing their field study. The text clearly defines the nature of professional identity, its
value to the profession and the professional, and ways to further develop one’s profes-
sional identity during field experience.
Although we are proud of the depth and breadth of the topics covered within this
text, we are more than aware that one text, one learning experience, will not be suffi-
cient for the development of a counselor’s professional competency. The formation of
both one’s professional identity and practice will be a lifelong process. It is a process
that we hope to facilitate through the presentation of this text and the creation of our
series Counseling and Professional Identity in the 21st Century.
Counseling and Professional Identity in the 21st Century is a new, fresh, pedagogi-
cally sound series of texts targeting counselors in training. This series is not simply a
compilation of isolated books matching that which are already in the market. Rather,
each book, with its targeted knowledge and skills, will be presented as but a part of a
larger whole. The focus and content of each text serves as a single lens through which
a counselor can view his or her clients, engage in his or her practice, and articulate his
or her own professional identity.
Counseling and Professional Identity in the 21st Century is unique not only in the
fact that it “packages” a series of traditional texts, but because it provides an integrated
curriculum targeting the formation of the reader’s professional identity and efficient,
ethical practice. Each book within the series is structured to facilitate the ongoing
professional formation of the reader. The materials found within each text are orga-
nized in order to move the readers to higher levels of cognitive, affective, and psycho-
motor functioning, resulting in their assimilation of the materials presented into both
their professional identity and their approach to professional practice. Although each
text targets a specific set of core competencies (cognates and skills), competencies
identified by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational
Programs (CACREP) as essential to the practice of counseling (see Table P.1), each
book in the series will emphasize each of the following:

•• the assimilation of concepts and constructs provided across the text found within the
series, thus fostering the reader’s ongoing development as a competent professional;
•• the blending of contemporary theory with current research and empirical support;
•• a focus on the development of procedural knowledge, with each text employing case illus-
trations and guided practice exercises to facilitate the reader’s ability to translate the theory
and research discussed into professional decision making and application;
•• the emphasis on the need for and means of demonstrating accountability; and
•• the fostering of the reader’s professional identity and, with it, the assimilation of the ethics
and standards of practice guiding the counseling profession.
xviii ❖ Field Experience

Table P.1 Books and Corresponding CACREP (Council for the Accreditation of Counseling
and Related Educational Programs) Competencies

Counseling and Professional Identity


Books in the Series Typical Courses Served by the Text
Introduction to Professional Counseling Introductory
Varunee Faii Sangganjanavanich and Cynthia A. Reynolds
Becoming a Skilled Counselor Basic skills
Richard D. Parsons and Naijian Zhang
Becoming a Multiculturally Competent Counselor Multicultural and diversity
Changming Duan and Chris Brown
Counseling Individuals Through the Lifespan Human development
Daniel Wai Chung Wong, Kim Hall, Cheryl Justice, and
Lucy Wong Hernandez
Counseling Assessment and Evaluation: Fundamentals of Assessment
Applied Practice
Joshua C. Watson and Brandé Flamez
Research Methods for Counseling Fundamental research
Robert Wright
Counseling Theory: Guiding Reflective Practice Theories
Richard D. Parsons and Naijian Zhang (Eds.)
Career Development and Counseling: Theory and Practice in Career counseling
a Multicultural World
Mei Tang and Jane Goodman
Counselor as Consultant Consultation and coordination
David Scott, Chadwick Royal, and Daniel Kissinger
Group Work: An Introduction for Helping Professionals Group dynamics, group counseling
Robert Conyne
Field Experience Professional practice
Naijian Zhang and Richard D. Parsons

We are proud to have served as coeditors of this series, feeling sure that all of the
text included, just like Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional,
will serve as a significant resource to you and your development as a professional
counselor.
Richard Parsons, PhD
Naijian Zhang, PhD

Authors’ Preface

T his field experience book was originally started as a result of a discussion


between the two of us about the issue of the value of a text for those engaged in
field experience. This was not ours alone to ponder; many of our colleagues who teach
practicum and internship classes and students who take field experience courses
shared our concern. The question, while targeting the need for a text, really was chal-
lenging us to consider the value of field experience to the overall professional develop-
ment of our students. As a result, other questions began to emerge. “What do we teach
our students in the field experience courses and how do our students learn while they
are studying in the field?” “How do our counseling students transition from students
to professionals and how might the experience in the field facilitate this transition?”
And finally, “How might one’s professional identity be given shape by the uniqueness
of one’s field experience?”
It is clear that field experience plays a pivotal role in the professional formation
and development of counselors. As such, we turned to existing research, anecdotal
reports from those who teach and supervise field experience, and input from students
who successfully navigated their field experiences, to identify those elements deemed
essential to successful field experience and, with it, meaningful growth and profes-
sional development. The results of our reflections and data gathering are the creation
of this text, Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional.
The book Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional includes 14
chapters, with each focusing on a special area of counseling trainees’ entire field experience.
We began with a big picture of what field experience is and how it happens by
discussing the specifics of this unique learning experience, such as “shift in focus: from
knowing to doing,” “from other- to self-taught,” “from ideal to real,” and “from self as
student to self as emerging professional.” The most important piece in this picture is
how counseling trainees form their professional identity from developmental, well-
ness, prevention, and empowerment and advocacy perspectives. Chapter 2 is about
how to match self to site. We are aware that at the time of reading this book, the coun-
seling trainee has most likely completed at least his or her first field experience place-
ment. We don’t believe this is a belated topic or effort because the majority of the
counseling or counseling psychology programs have one practicum class and two
internship classes. In addition, thoroughly assessing self and the site is very useful even
when the counseling trainee has been placed on a practicum or internship site. Chapter
3 discusses how counseling trainees transition from the ideal to the real. The chapter

xix
xx ❖ Field Experience

particularly focuses on what is the ideal and the real, why the ideal is always less than
the real, and how counseling trainees effect change in this transitioning process.
Chapter 4 continues the theme of moving from the ideal to the real by providing the
topic of the ethics of practice in the real world. In terms of ethics, the question of why
being is more than knowing in the process of transitioning from a student to a coun-
seling professional is specifically answered. Chapter 5 intends to assist counseling
trainees in discovering what the essentials are in the process of reflection on counsel-
ing practice and professional development. Specifically, it describes the moment-to-
moment decisions made by counseling trainees and their intentionality behind what
they are doing to increase the efficacy of their decisions and effectiveness as emerging
counseling professionals.
Although we did not divide the book into sections, it has a clear line in that the
first five chapters focus on the overall picture of counseling field experience and the
later chapters target the specifics that counseling trainees need to learn in the process
of their field experience. Chapter 6 focuses on the essentials of counseling supervision
and how counseling trainees can emerge as professionals with their supervision expe-
rience. This chapter not only emphasizes what counseling supervision is and why
counseling supervision is important, but also centers on the preparation of counseling
trainees for a variety of issues they may encounter in their counseling supervision.
With the feedback from the book reviewers, we have placed the chapter “Growing
Through Supervision” before all the chapters that contain the basics of field experience
because we believe both the site supervisor and the faculty supervisor are the backbone
of counseling trainees. In other words, they are the first-line supporters for consulting
whenever the counseling trainees encounter difficulty. Chapter 7 affirms the important
aspect of multicultural counseling in the field experience. This chapter targets the
counseling trainees’ multicultural counseling competence in the real world, and atten-
tion is specifically given to counseling trainees’ multicultural awareness and sensitivity
when applying traditional counseling theories, skills, and techniques to multiculturally
diverse clients in their practice. To help counseling trainees grow as emerging counsel-
ing professionals, Chapter 8 targets the strategies and skills of crisis intervention. The
what, how, why, and when questions concerning crisis intervention are all answered for
counseling trainees in this chapter. Violence and aggression to counselors have become
a reality nowadays in the counseling field, and this issue is oftentimes not adequately
emphasized in counseling practicum and internship. So, Chapter 9 is devoted to the
skills and techniques important to reducing risk for counseling trainees themselves in
the practice. The uniqueness of Chapter 10 is that this chapter logically depicts the key
elements of documentation and record keeping through thoroughly discussing ethical/
legal requirements and issues involved in documentation and record keeping. It then
offers strategies for appropriate documentation and record keeping and a variety of
progress-note-taking formats for counseling trainees to choose from based on their
needs. We believe the most important person in the helping process is the counselor
himself or herself. Taking care of self and making the counselor-self remain sound
physically and mentally is the fundamental for counseling effectiveness. Chapter 11
covers self-care and self-protection. This chapter helps counseling trainees both to
Authors’ Preface ❖ xxi

become aware of what burnout and compassion fatigue are and to learn how to prevent
them. Chapter 12 affirms the importance of achieving a successful field experience
termination and closure with clients, supervisors, and other counseling staff. Common
issues and essentials involved in termination and closure at the internship site are thor-
oughly discussed, and specific steps to achieve the success of termination are offered.
For counseling trainees, career is very important in their lives. Chapter 13 contains the
practicalities for counseling trainees to transition from practice to career. This chapter
not only helps counseling trainees understand the connection between their internship
and career but also offers strategies and skills for them to walk into the field. The final
chapter, Chapter 14, invites counseling trainees to use all they have learned to craft
their professional identity in the process of transitioning to self as counselor.
We strongly believe Field Experience: Transitioning From Student to Professional
provides not only the nuts and bolts but also a road map that counseling trainees can
use to guide their transition from being a student to becoming an emerging profes-
sional in the process of their field experience.
NZ/RP

Acknowledgments

W hile we, the authors of this text, are given credit for its creation, the truth is that
the formation of the ideas contained, as well as the crafting of the presentation,
required the contribution of many others. These individuals include those who have
made contributions to the existing literature on the topic of the book and those who
have offered ideas and insights. We wish to express our appreciation to them for their
contributions.
First, we want to thank our colleagues and those who shared their ideas, insights,
and experiences of teaching field experience courses. Their wisdom helped us in the
process of developing the book proposal.
We want to thank the reviewers who have encouraged us after they reviewed our
initial proposal. We also appreciate their candid feedback on how we should make
changes and improve the text. These individuals, not including those who chose to be
anonymous, are Ronica Arnold Branson, Jackson State University; Britney G.
Brinkman, Chatham University; Kathy DeOrnellas, Texas Woman’s University; Laura
L. Lansing, Mount Aloysius College; Catherine M. Pittman, Saint Mary’s College;
Chuck Reid, The University of Texas-Pan American; Elizabeth Ruiz, Governors State
University; and Gina Zanardelli, Chatham University.
We also want to sincerely thank the reviewers who spent enormous time reading
our draft manuscript and wrote long, detailed, and helpful feedback and suggestions.
We have made changes based on their feedback and suggestions. Their time and exper-
tise are greatly appreciated. These individuals, not including four people who chose to
be anonymous, are Mary Olufunmilayo Adekson, St. Bonaventure University; Josue
Gonzalez, The University of Texas at San Antonio; Danielle M. Kohlo, University of
Northern Colorado; Ann Leonard-Zabel, Curry College; Chuck Reid, The University
of Texas-Pan American; and Gina Zanardelli, Curry College.
Finally, we would like to acknowledge the support and encouragement from the
editorial team at SAGE. Especially, our thanks go to Carrie Montoya, Assistant to the
Editor; Abbie Rickard, Associate Editor; Brenda Weight, Copy Editor; Kelly DeRosa,
Production Editor; Candice Harman, Cover Designer from the Production Department;
and our friend Kassie Graves, the Editor.
NZ/RP

xxii
SAGE was founded in 1965 by Sara Miller McCune to
support the dissemination of usable knowledge by publishing
innovative and high-quality research and teaching content.
Today, we publish more than 750 journals, including those
of more than 300 learned societies, more than 800 new
books per year, and a growing range of library products
including archives, data, case studies, reports, conference
highlights, and video. SAGE remains majority-owned by our
founder, and after Sara’s lifetime will become owned by a
charitable trust that secures our continued independence.

Los Angeles | London | Washington DC | New Delhi | Singapore | Boston


1 ❖
Field
Experience as
Formative to
Professional
Identity
Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.
Novalis

T he quote from this 19th-century German poet may not completely ring true to
those experiencing initial anxieties as they venture out of the confines of a class-
room to begin the application of their knowledge in the world of the professional.
Although there are anxieties tied to engaging in field work, there are also many oppor-
tunities for growth as a professional and for facilitating the unfolding of one’s profes-
sional identity. Field experience—be it called practicum, internship, apprenticeship, or
field study—is a pivotal and invaluable contributor to the transitioning from student
to professional.
The transition from student to professional brings with it a desire to use the
knowledge and skills acquired in the classroom in the service of one’s professional
role and function. The transition from student to professional is one in which the
self-concerns of student are replaced by the heartfelt concerns for another. The tran-
sition from student to professional is one in which concerns over grades and external
demands for performance are replaced by an internal desire for effectiveness. The

1
2 ❖ Field Experience

transition from student to professional is accompanied by the increased awareness


that being a professional helper is not only an awesome responsibility . . . but an
awesome gift to be respected and valued.
The experience of serving in the role and function as a counselor within the field
invites a student to experience not only the tasks of counseling but the values and
philosophical assumptions that guide the performance of those tasks. Interacting
within the role of counselor and engaging with other professionals within the field
provides the student the opportunity to more fully integrate his or her self-concept and
identity with that commonly shared by those laying claim to the label of counselor. The
transition from student to professional and with it the development of one’s profes-
sional identity as a counselor takes flight during one’s field experience. It is this process
of transitioning to develop a professional identity as a counselor that serves as the focus
for this chapter.
Specifically, at the end of this chapter readers will be able to

•• describe those characteristics of a field experience that makes it a unique learning


environment;
•• describe those factors that can reduce or enhance professional growth via field experience;
•• explain what is meant by a counselor’s “professional identity”; and
•• describe the values, assumptions, and philosophical perspective that shape the unique
professional identity of counselors.

Field Experience: A Unique Learning Experience

Field experience—be it called practicum, internship, or simply field experience—is an


integral part of the curriculum of most, if not all, counselor education programs. It may
appear in a catalog and be listed on registration materials similarly to all the other required
courses. However, to assume that field experience is just another course, another group of
credits to be acquired, similarly to all other courses within a program, would be a mistake.
What distinguishes field experience from other parts of the curriculum is not
merely its content. Field experience is a unique learning experience, and it is this unique-
ness that not only provides a special opportunity for professional development but also
presents a number of challenges to one accustomed to the “safety” of a classroom.
Contrasted to most classroom experiences, field experience occurs, by definition,
in a unique, nonclassroom learning environment; employs unique performance
requirements targeting application rather than acquisition of knowledge and skills; and
presents unique challenges to and opportunities for professional growth and develop-
ment of one’s professional identity.

Shift in Focus: From “Knowing” to “Doing”


Field experience plays an irreplaceable role in one’s professional development.
During field experiences, one is provided hands-on learning opportunities where the
connection of theoretical and conceptual information acquired in the classroom is
Field Experience as Formative to Professional Identity ❖ 3

extended to the professional world of practice. During field experience, there is a shift
in focus from knowing and understanding to doing and applying. It is no longer one’s
ability to describe, explain, or discuss a theoretical construct or research finding that
is called for but rather the ability to translate these concepts and constructs into actions
which ultimately will best serve the clients.

Shifting From Other- to Self-Taught


In most counselor education graduate programs, field experience follows upon the
completion of a number of classroom courses focusing on fundamental knowledge and
skills. In these classroom experiences, there was most likely a teacher whose role was
to structure the learning experiences, direct or guide the sharing of information, and
provide measures of achievement. This role was contrasted to that of student.
The student in this learning environment was given the charge to attend, to par-
ticipate, to acquire designated knowledge and skills, and to perform successfully on the
measures of achievement. This formula, of a teacher-designed and -directed learning
experience, was, with minor variations, one students most likely had encountered pre-
viously throughout their years of education. This familiarity with the roles assigned
made these learning encounters somewhat comfortable, even safe and predictable.
The field as a learning environment, however, challenges the familiar roles and
structure of education. Upon entering one’s field placement, it becomes quite obvious
that this is quite a unique learning environment. Perhaps it’s the absence of neatly
arranged desks or instructor with a PowerPoint presentation, or perhaps it is the lack
of a class scheduled in line with the tightly developed sequential curriculum, but the
absence of that with which students are accustomed grabs their attention and
announces that this is a unique learning environment.
Much of what is listed above is obvious—but these are only the superficial differ-
ences to be experienced within this learning environment. The more substantive dif-
ferences between the field and classroom experiences rests in the unique demands
placed on students as they attempt to maximize the learning opportunities presented
in the field. It is a demand to step into the role of self-as-teacher and is marked by an
increased call for independent, self-directed learning; a shift in focus from grades to
outcomes; and a pursuit of, rather than a retreat from, evaluation and corrective feed-
back. Students who are able to embrace these new demands will be the ones who
maximize their learning experiences in their field placement.

Increased Independence and Self-Direction


There is a comfort in knowing what is expected of us, when it is due, and the
rubric employed for assessment. A good classroom teacher develops syllabi and les-
son plans that provides this structure. While those entering their field experience
may receive syllabi with objectives, tasks and timelines, these most often reflect the
“classroom component” and not the objectives, tasks, and timelines encountered in
the field.
4 ❖ Field Experience

From the first moments of their field experience, the reality is that to some degree
what students do, or pursue, may be the result of self-direction rather than other direc-
tion. This is not to suggest that students in the field have carte blanche to do whatever
they desire, but rather that the field is an environment that is fluid—presenting crises,
demands, challenges, and opportunities that do not lend themselves neatly to a sched-
ule or fixed plan. Students who will maximize the benefit of the field experience are
those who initiate their own learning, who are not only open to but seek out opportu-
nities to observe, participate, and do. Students who benefit most from the field experi-
ence will be the ones who embrace the increased independence and potential for
student-directed learning rather than passively await moment-to-moment direction
from their supervisor.
As noted, this is not to suggest that students in the field should go off and simply
do their “own thing,” but rather that they may need to look for experiences that they
feel will prove growth filled and invite the supervisor to consider sanctioning these
experiences. Exercise 1.1 is provided to stimulate your reflections about those types of
experiences you feel would be most beneficial to your professional development.

Exercise 1.1
Seeking Growth
Directions: There may be a temptation to engage in activities with which you feel you
have basic competence and could demonstrate to a supervisor your capabilities to per-
form successfully. This is understandable, because no one really enjoys struggling or
exhibiting inadequacy. But for growth to occur, you need to venture beyond your current
level of success and experience things that stretch your capabilities. As you engage in
your field experience, it would be helpful to reflect on your knowledge and skill and
identify areas where growth is desired. Complete the following table and consider shar-
ing it with your own site supervisor so that collaboratively you can develop a plan for
growth and development.

Assessment Plan for Professional


(Scale: 3 = mastery, Development
2 = basic competency, (including specific
1 = minimum to tasks, activities,
Area of Focus absent) experiences)
Establishing a Therapeutic
Alliance
Case Conceptualization
and Treatment Planning
Preventive Programming
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The burning
world
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The burning world

Author: Algis Budrys

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Release date: October 5, 2023 [eBook #71810]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1957

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed


Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE


BURNING WORLD ***
The Burning World

By ALGIS BUDRYS

Illustrated by SCHOENHERR

Can the battle for freedom ever be won—as


long as some men still want to fight it?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from


Infinity July 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
They walked past rows of abandoned offices in the last government
office building in the world—two men who looked vastly different, but
who had crucial similarities.
Josef Kimmensen had full lips trained to set in a tight, thin line, and
live, intelligent eyes. He was tall and looked thin, though he was not.
He was almost sixty years old, and his youth and childhood had been
such that now his body was both old for its years and still a compact,
tightly-wound mechanism of bone and muscle fiber.
Or had been, until an hour ago. Then it had failed him; and his one
thought now was to keep Jem Bendix from finding out how close he
was to death.
Jem Bendix was a young man, about twenty-eight, with a broad,
friendly grin and a spring to his step. His voice, when he spoke, was
low and controlled. He was the man Josef Kimmensen had chosen to
replace him as president of the Freemen's League.
The building itself was left over from the old regime. It was perhaps
unfortunate—Kimmensen had often debated the question with
himself—to risk the associations that clung to this building. But a
building is only a building, and the dust of years chokes the past to
death. It was better to work here than to build a new set of offices. It
might seem a waste to leave a still-new building, and that might tend
to make people linger after their jobs had finished themselves. This
pile of cracking bricks and peeled marble facings would be falling in a
heap soon, and the small staff that still worked here couldn't help but
be conscious of it. It was probably a very useful influence.
They walked through the domed rotunda, with its columns, echoing
alcoves, and the jag-topped pedestals where the old regime's statues
had been sledge-hammered away. The rotunda was gloomy, its
skylight buried under rain-borne dust and drifted leaves from the trees
on the mountainside. There was water puddled on the rotten marble
floor under a place where the skylight's leading was gone.
Kimmensen left the day's letters with the mail clerk, and he and
Bendix walked out to the plaza, where his plane was parked. Around
the plaza, the undergrowth was creeping closer every year, and vine
runners were obscuring the hard precision of the concrete's edge. On
all sides, the mountains towered up toward the pale sun, their steep
flanks cloaked in snow and thick stands of bluish evergreen. There
was a light breeze in the crystalline air, and a tang of fir sap.
Kimmensen breathed in deeply. He loved these mountains. He had
been born in the warm lowlands, where a man's blood did not stir so
easily nor surge so strongly through his veins. Even the air here was
freedom's air.
As they climbed into his plane, he asked: "Did anything important
come up in your work today, Jem?"
Jem shrugged uncertainly. "I don't know. Nothing that's urgent at the
moment. But it might develop into something. I meant to speak to you
about it after dinner. Did Salmaggi tell you one of our families was
burned out up near the northwest border?"
Kimmensen shook his head and pressed his lips together. "No, he
didn't. I didn't have time to see him today." Perhaps he should have.
But Salmaggi was the inevitable misfit who somehow creeps into
every administrative body. He was a small, fat, tense, shrilly
argumentative man who fed on alarms like a sparrow. Somehow,
through election after election, he had managed to be returned as
Land Use Advisor. Supposedly, his duties were restricted to helping
the old agricultural districts convert to synthetic diets. But that
limitation had never restrained his busybody nature. Consultations
with him were full of sidetracks into politics, alarmisms, and piping
declamations about things like the occasional family found burned
out.
Kimmensen despaired of ever making the old-fashioned politician
types like Salmaggi understand the new society. Kimmensen, too,
could feel sorrow at the thought of homesteads razed, of people dead
in the midst of what they had worked to build. It was hard—terribly
hard—to think of; too easy to imagine each might be his own home.
Too easy to come upon the charred embers and feel that a horrible
thing had been done, without taking time to think that perhaps this
family had abused its freedom. Sentiment was the easy thing. But
logic reminded a man that some people were quarrelsome, that some
people insisted on living their neighbors' lives, that some people were
offensive.
There were people with moral codes they clung to and lived by,
people who worshipped in what they held to be the only orthodox
way, people who clung to some idea—some rock on which their lives
rested. Well and good. But if they tried to inflict these reforms on their
neighbors, patience could only go so far, and the tolerance of
fanaticism last just so long.
Kimmensen sighed as he fumbled with his seat belt buckle, closed
the power contacts, and engaged the vanes. "We're haunted by the
past, Jem," he said tiredly. "Salmaggi can't keep himself from thinking
like a supervisor. He can't learn that quarrels between families are the
families' business." He nodded to himself. "It's a hard thing to learn,
sometimes. But if Salmaggi doesn't, one of these days he may not
come back from his hoppings around the area."
"I wouldn't be worrying, Joe," Jem said with a nod of agreement. "But
Salmaggi tells me there's a fellow who wants to get a group of men
together and take an army into the northwest. This fellow—Anse
Messerschmidt's his name—is saying these things are raids by the
Northwesters."
"Is he getting much support?" Kimmensen asked quickly.
"I don't know. It doesn't seem likely. After all, the Northwesters're
people just like us."
Kimmensen frowned, and for one bad moment he was frightened. He
remembered, in his youth—it was only twenty-eight years ago—
Bausch strutting before his cheering crowds, bellowing hysterically
about the enemies surrounding them—the lurking armies of the
people to the south, to the east, the northwest; every compass point
held enemies for Bausch. Against those enemies, there must be
mighty armies raised. Against those enemies, there must be
Leadership—firm Leadership: Bausch.
"Armies!" he burst out. "The day Freemen organize to invade another
area is the day they stop being Freemen. They become soldiers, loyal
to the army and their generals. They lose their identification with their
homes and families. They become a separate class—an armed,
organized class of military specialists no one family can stand
against. And on that day, freedom dies for everybody.
"You understand me, don't you, Jem? You understand how
dangerous talk like this Messerschmidt's can be?" Kimmensen knew
Bendix did. But it was doubly important to be doubly assured, just
now.
Bendix nodded, his quick, easy smile growing on his face. "I feel the
same way, Joe." And Kimmensen, looking at him, saw that Jem
meant it. He had watched Jem grow up—had worked with him for the
past ten years. They thought alike; their logic followed the same,
inevitable paths. Kimmensen couldn't remember one instance of their
disagreeing on anything.
The plane was high in the air. Below them, green forests filled the
valleys, and the snow on the mountaintops was red with the light of
sunset. On the east sides of the slopes, twilight cast its shadows.
Kimmensen looked down at the plots of open ground, some still in
crops, others light green with grass against the dark green of the
trees. Off in the far west, the sun was half in the distant ocean, and
the last slanting rays of direct light reflected from the snug roofs of
houses nestled under trees.
Here is the world, Kimmensen thought. Here is the world we saw in
the times before we fought out our freedom. Here is the world
Dubrovic gave us, working in the cold of his cellar, looking like a
maniac gnome, with his beard and his long hair, putting circuits
together by candle-light, coughing blood and starving. Here is the
world Anna and I saw together.
That was a long time ago. I was thirty-two, and Anna a worn thirty,
with silver in her fine black hair, before we were free to build the
house and marry. In the end, we weren't as lucky as we thought, to
have come through the fighting years. The doctors honestly believed
they'd gotten all the toxins out of her body, but in the end, she died.
Still, here it is, or almost. It isn't given to very many men to have their
dreams come true in their lifetimes.

Kimmensen's house stood on the side of a mountain, with its back to


the north and glass walls to catch the sun. There was a patio, and a
lawn. Kimmensen had been the first to break away from the old
agricultural life in this area. There was no reason why a man couldn't
like synthetic foods just as well as the natural varieties. Like so many
other things, the clinging to particular combinations of the few basic
flavors was a matter of education and nothing else. With Direct Power
to transmute chemicals for him, a man was not tied to cows and a
plow.
The plane settled down to its stand beside the house, and they got
out and crossed the patio. The carefully tended dwarf pines and
cedars in their planters were purple silhouettes against the sky.
Kimmensen opened the way into the living room, then slid the glass
panel back into place behind them.
The living room was shadowy and almost dark, despite the glass.
Kimmensen crossed the softly whispering rug. "Apparently Susanne
hasn't come home yet. She told me she was going to a party this
afternoon." He took a deep, unhappy breath. "Sit down, Jem—I'll get
you a drink while we're waiting." He touched the base of a lamp on an
end table, and the room came to life under a soft glow of light. The
patio went pitch-black by comparison.
"Scotch and water, Jem?"
Bendix held up a thumb and forefinger pressed together. "Just a
pinch, Joe. A little goes a long way with me, you know."
Kimmensen nodded and went into the kitchen.
The cookers were glowing in the dark, pilot lights glinting. He touched
the wall switch. The light panels came on, and he took glasses out of
the cupboard. Splashing water from the ice-water tap, he shook his
head with resigned impatience.
Susanne should have been home. Putting the dinner in the cookers
and setting the timers was not enough, no matter how good the meal
might be—and Susanne was an excellent meal planner. She ought to
have been home, waiting to greet them. He wouldn't have minded so
much, but she'd known Jem was going to be here. If she had to go to
the Ennerth girl's party, she could have come home early. She was
insulting Jem.
Kimmensen opened the freezer and dropped ice cubes into the
glasses. She never enjoyed herself at parties. She always came
home downcast and quiet. Yet she went, grim-faced, determined.
He shook his head again, and started to leave the kitchen. He
stopped to look inside the cookers, each with its Direct Power unit
humming softly, each doing its automatic work perfectly. Once the
prepared dishes had been tucked inside and the controls set, they
could be left to supervise themselves. One operation followed
perfectly upon another, with feedback monitors varying temperatures
as a dish began to brown, with thermocouples and humidity detectors
always on guard, built into an exactly balanced system and
everything done just right.
He touched the temperature controls, resetting them just a trifle to
make sure, and went back out into the living room. He took the bottle
of carefully compounded Scotch out of the sideboard, filled two shot
glasses, and went over to Bendix.
"Here you are, Jem." He sat down jerkily, dropping rather than sinking
into the chair.
Dying angered him. He felt no slowdown in his mind—his brain, he
was sure, could still chew a fact the way it always had. He felt no
drying out in his brain cells, no mental sinews turning into brittle
cords.
He'd been lucky, yes. Not many men had come whole out of the
fighting years. Now his luck had run out, and that was the end of it.
There were plenty of good men long in the ground. Now he'd join
them, not having done badly. Nothing to be ashamed of, and a
number of grounds for quiet pride, if truth be told. Still, it made him
angry.
"Susanne ought to be home any moment," he growled.
Jem smiled. "Take it easy, Joe. You know how these kids are. She
probably has to wait 'til somebody else's ready to leave so she can
get a lift home."
Kimmensen grunted. "She could have found a way to get home in
time. I offered to let her take the plane if she wanted to. But, no, she
said she'd get a ride over."
The puzzled anger he always felt toward Susanne was making his
head wag. She'd annoyed him for years about the plane, ever since
she was eighteen. Then, when he offered her its occasional use after
she'd reached twenty-five, she had made a point of not taking it. He
couldn't make head or tail of the girl. She was quick, intelligent,
educated—she was potentially everything he'd tried to teach her to
be. But she was willful—stubborn. She refused to listen to his advice.
The growing coldness between them left them constantly at swords'
points. He wondered sometimes if there hadn't been something
hidden in Anna's blood—some faint strain that had come to the
surface in Susanne and warped her character.
No matter—she was still his daughter. He'd do his duty toward her.

"This is really very good, Joe," Jem remarked, sipping his drink.
"Excellent."
"Thank you," Kimmensen replied absently. He was glaringly
conscious of the break in what should have been a smooth evening's
social flow. "Please accept my apologies for Susanne's
thoughtlessness."
Jem smiled. "There's nothing to apologize for, Joe. When the time
comes for her to settle down, she'll do it."
"Tell me, Jem—" Kimmensen started awkwardly. But he had to ask.
"Do you like Susanne? I think you do, but tell me anyhow."
Jem nodded quietly. "Very much. She's moody and she's headstrong.
But that'll change. When it does, I'll ask her."
Kimmensen nodded to himself. Once again, his judgment of Bendix
was confirmed. Most young people were full of action. Everything had
to be done now. They hadn't lived long enough to understand how
many tomorrows there were in even the shortest life.
But Jem was different. He was always willing to wait and let things
unfold themselves. He was cautious and solemn beyond his years.
He'd make Susanne the best possible husband, and an excellent
president for the League.
"It's just as well we've got a little time," Jem was saying. "I was
wondering how much you knew about Anse Messerschmidt."
Kimmensen frowned. "Messerschmidt? Nothing. And everything. His
kind're all cut out of the same pattern."
Jem frowned with him. "I've seen him once or twice. He's about my
age, and we've bumped into each other at friends' houses. He's one
of those swaggering fellows, always ready to start an argument."
"He'll start one too many, one day."
"I hope so."
Kimmensen grunted, and they relapsed into silence. Nevertheless, he
felt a peculiar uneasiness. When he heard the other plane settling
down outside his house, he gripped his glass tighter. He locked his
eyes on the figure of Susanne walking quickly up to the living room
wall, and the lean shadow behind her. Then the panel opened, and
Susanne and her escort stepped out of the night and into the living
room. Kimmensen took a sudden breath. He knew Susanne, and he
knew that whatever she did was somehow always the worst possible
thing. A deep, pain-ridden shadow crossed his face.
Susanne turned her face to look up at the man standing as quietly as
one of Death's outriders beside her.
"Hello, Father," she said calmly. "Hello, Jem. I'd like you both to meet
Anse Messerschmidt."

CHAPTER II
It had happened at almost exactly four o'clock that afternoon.
As he did at least once each day, Kimmensen had been checking his
Direct Power side-arm. The weapon lay on the desk blotter in front of
him. The calloused heel of his right palm held it pressed against the
blotter while his forefinger pushed the buttplate aside. He moved the
safety slide, pulling the focus grid out of the way, and depressed the
squeeze triggers with his index and little fingers, holding the weapon
securely in his folded-over palm. Inside the butt, the coil began taking
power from the mysterious somewhere it was aligned on. Old
Dubrovic, with his sheaves of notations and encoded symbology,
could have told him. But Dubrovic had been killed in one spiteful last
gasp of the old regime, for giving the world as much as he had.
The pea-sized tubes flashed into life. Kimmensen released the
triggers, slid the buttplate back, and pushed the safety slide down.
The side-arm was working—as capable of leveling a mountain as of
burning a thread-thin hole in a man.
He put the side-arm back in its holster. Such was the incarnation of
freedom. The side-arm did not need to be machined out of metal, or
handgripped in oil-finished walnut. These were luxuries. It needed
only a few pieces of wire, twisted just so—it was an easy thing to
learn—, a few tubes out of an old radio. And from the moment you
had one, you were a free man. You were an army to defend your
rights. And when everybody had one—when Direct Power
accumulators lighted your house, drove your plane, let you create
building materials, food, clothing out of any cheap, plentiful
substance; when you needed no Ministry of Supply, no Board of
Welfare Supervision, no Bureau of Employment Allocation, no
Ministry of the Interior, no National Police—when all these things
were as they were, then the world was free.
He smiled to himself. Not very many people thought of it in those
technical terms, but it made no difference. They knew how it felt. He
remembered talking to an old man, a year after the League was
founded.
"Mr. Kimmensen, don't talk no Silas McKinley to me. I ain't never read
a book in my life. I remember young fellers comin' around to court my
daughter. Every once in a while, they'd get to talkin' politics with me—
I gotta admit, my daughter wasn't so much. They'd try and explain
about Fascism and Bureaucracy and stuff like that, and they used to
get pretty worked up, throwin' those big words around. All I knew was,
the government fellers used to come around and take half of my stuff
for taxes. One of 'em finally come around and took my daughter. And
I couldn't do nothin' about it. I used to have to work sixteen hours a
day just to eat.
"O.K., so now you come around and try and use your kind of big
words on me. All I know is, I got me a house, I got me some land, and
I got me a wife and some new daughters. And I got me a gun, and
ain't nobody gonna take any of 'em away from me." The old man
grinned and patted the weapon at his waist. "So, if it's all the same to
you, I'll just say anything you say is O.K. by me long's it adds up to
me bein' my own boss."
That had been a generation ago. But Kimmensen still remembered it
as the best possible proof of the freedom he believed in. He had paid
great prices for it in the past. Now that the old regime was as dead as
most of the men who remembered it, he would still have been
instantly ready to pay them again.
But no one demanded those sacrifices. Twenty-eight years had
passed, as uneventful and unbrokenly routine as the first thirty years
of his life had been desperate and dangerous. Even the last few
traces of administration he represented would soon have withered
away, and then his world would be complete. He reached for the next
paper in his IN basket.
He felt the thready flutter in his chest and stiffened with surprise. He
gripped the edge of his desk, shocked at the way this thing was
suddenly upon him.
A bubble effervesced wildly in the cavity under his ribs, like a liquid
turned hot in a flash.
He stared blindly. Here it was, in his fifty-ninth year. The knock on the
door. He'd never guessed how it would finally come. It hadn't had to
take the form of this terrible bubble. It might as easily have been a
sudden sharp burst behind his eyes or a slower, subtler gnawing at
his vitals. But he'd known it was coming, as every man knows and
tries to forget it is coming.
The searing turbulence mounted into his throat. He opened his
mouth, strangling. Sudden cords knotted around his chest and, even
strangling, he groaned. Angina pectoris—pain in the chest—the
second-worst pain a man can feel.
The bubble burst and his jaws snapped shut, his teeth mashing
together in his lower lip. He swayed in his chair and thought:
That's it. Now I'm an old man.

After a time, he carefully mopped his lips and chin with a


handkerchief and pushed the bloodied piece of cloth into the bottom
of his wastebasket, under the crumpled disposal of his day's work. He
kept his lips compressed until he was sure the cuts had clotted, and
decided that, with care, he could speak and perhaps even eat without
their being noticed.
Suddenly, there were many things for him to decide quickly. He
glanced at the clock on his desk. In an hour, Jem Bendix would be
dropping by from his office down the hall. It'd be time to go home, and
tonight Jem was invited to come to dinner.
Kimmensen shook his head. He wished he'd invited Jem for some
other day. Then he shrugged, thinking: I'm acting as though the
world's changed. It hasn't; I have. Some arrangements will have to
change, but they will change for the quicker.
He nodded to himself. He'd wanted Susanne and Jem to meet more
often. Just as well he'd made the invitation for tonight. Now, more
than ever, that might be the solution to one problem. Susanne was
twenty-five now; she couldn't help but be losing some of her callow
ideas. Give her a husband's firm hand and steadying influence, a
baby or two to occupy her time, and she'd be all right. She'd never be
what he'd hoped for in a daughter, but it was too late for any more
efforts toward changing that. At least she'd be all right.
He looked at his clock again. Fifty-five minutes. Time slipped away
each moment your back was turned.
He hooked his mouth, forgetting the cuts, and winced. He held his
palm pressed against his lips and smiled wryly in his mind. Five
minutes here, five there, and suddenly twenty-eight years were gone.
Twenty-eight years here in this office. He'd never thought it'd take so
long to work himself out of a job, and here he wasn't quite finished
even yet. When he'd accepted the League presidency, he'd thought
he only needed a few years—two or three—before the medical and
educational facilities were established well enough to function
automatically. Well, they had been. Any League member could go to
a hospital or a school and find another League member who'd
decided to become a doctor or a teacher.
That much had been easy. In some areas, people had learned to
expect cooperation from other people, and had stopped expecting
some all-powerful Authority to step in and give orders. But then,
medicine and education had not quite gotten under the thumb of the
State in this part of the world.
The remainder had been hard. He'd expected, in a sort of naive haze,
that everyone could instantly make the transition from the old regime
to the new freedom. If he'd had any doubts at all, he'd dismissed
them with the thought that this was, after all, mountainous country,
and mountaineers were always quick to assert their personal
independence. Well, they were. Except for a lingering taint from what
was left of the old generation, the youngsters would be taking to
freedom as naturally as they drew breath. But it had taken a whole
generation. The oldsters still thought of a Leader when they thought
of their president. They were accustomed to having an Authority think
for them, and they confused the League with a government.
Kimmensen shuffled through the papers on his desk. There they
were; requests for food from areas unused to a world where no one
issued Agricultural Allocations, letters from people styling themselves
Mayors of towns.... The old fictions died hard. Crazy old Dubrovic had
given men everywhere the weapon of freedom, but only time and
patience would give them full understanding of what freedom was.
Well, after all, this area had been drowned for centuries in the blood
of rebellious men. It was the ones who gave in easily who'd had the
leisure to breed children. He imagined things were different in the
Western Hemisphere, where history had not had its tyrannous
centuries to grind away the spirited men. But even here, more and
more families were becoming self-contained units, learning to
synthesize food and turn farms into parks, abandoning the market-
place towns that should have died with the first MGB man found
burned in an alley.
It was coming—the day when all men would be as free of their past
as of their fellow men. It seemed, now, that he would never
completely see it. That was too bad. He'd hoped for at least some
quiet years at home. But that choice had been made twenty-eight
years ago.
Sometimes a man had to be a prisoner of his own conscience. He
could have stayed home and let someone else do it, but freedom was
too precious to consign to someone he didn't fully trust.
Now he'd have to call a League election as soon as possible.
Actually, the snowball was well on its way downhill, and all that
remained for the next president was the tying up of some loose ends.
The business in the outlying districts—the insistence on mistaking
inter-family disputes for raids from the northwest—would blow over. A
society of armed Freeman families had to go through such a period.
Once mutual respect was established—once the penalty for anti-
sociability became quite clear—then the society would function
smoothly.
And as for who would succeed him, there wasn't a better candidate
than Jem Bendix. Jem had always thought the way he did, and Jem
was intelligent. Furthermore, everyone liked Jem—there'd be no
trouble about the election.
So that was settled. He looked at his clock again and saw that he had
a half hour more. He pushed his work out of the way, reached into a
drawer, and took out a few sheets of paper. He frowned with
impatience at himself as his hands fumbled. For a moment, he
brooded down at the seamed stumps where the old regime's police
wires had cut through his thumbs. Then, holding his pen clamped
firmly between his middle and index knuckles, he began writing:
"I, Joseph Ferassi Kimmensen, being of sound mind and mature
years, do make the following Will...."

CHAPTER III
Messerschmidt was tall and bony as a wolfhound. His long face was
pale, and his ears were large and prominent. Of his features, the ears
were the first to attract a casual glance. Then attention shifted to his
mouth, hooked in a permanent sardonic grimace under his blade of a
nose. Then his eyes caught, and held. They were dark and set close
together, under shaggy black eyebrows. There was something in
them that made Kimmensen's hackles rise.
He tried to analyze it as Messerschmidt bowed slightly from the hips,
his hands down at the sides of his dark clothes.
"Mr. President, I'm honored."
"Messerschmidt." Kimmensen acknowledged, out of courtesy. The
man turned slightly and bowed to Bendix. "Mr. Secretary."
And now Kimmensen caught it. Toward him, Messerschmidt had
been a bit restrained. But his bow to Jem was a shade too deep, and
his voice as he delivered Jem's title was too smooth.
It was mockery. Deep, ineradicable, and unveiled, it lurked in the
backs of Messerschmidt's eyes. Mockery—and the most colossal ego
Kimmensen had ever encountered.
Good God! Kimmensen thought, I believed we'd killed all your kind!
"Father, I invited—" Susanne had begun, her face animated for once.
Now she looked from Jem to Kimmensen and her face fell and set
into a mask. "Never mind," she said flatly. She looked at Kimmensen
again, and turned to Messerschmidt. "I'm sorry, Anse. You'll excuse
me. I have to see to the dinner."
"Of course, Susanne," Messerschmidt said. "I hope to see you again."
Susanne nodded—a quick, sharp jerk of her head—and went quickly
into the kitchen. Messerschmidt, Jem, and Kimmensen faced each
other.
"An awkward situation," Messerschmidt said quietly.
"You made it," Kimmensen answered.
Messerschmidt shrugged. "I'll take the blame. I think we'd best say
good night."
"Good night."
"Good night, Mr. President ... Mr. Secretary."
Messerschmidt bowed to each of them and stepped out of the living
room, carefully closing the panel behind him. He walked through the
pool of light from the living room and disappeared into the darkness
on the other side of the patio. In a minute, Kimmensen heard his
plane beat its way into the air, and then he sat down again, clutching
his glass. He saw that Bendix was white-lipped and shaking.
"So now I've met him," Kimmensen said, conscious of the strain in his
voice.
"That man can't be allowed to stay alive!" Bendix burst out. "If all the
things I hate were ever personified, they're in him."

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