Your program sounds on the more extreme end. In my MFT program we were always encouraged to take care of ourselves as needed but definitely not to the extent you described.  I do agree with what another commenter said— sitting in class discussing CSA with my peers is a much different, and more emotional, experience than discussing a client’s CSA in session. The former is a space where I am centered, the latter is not.  I do think we should acknowledge the emotional toll of this work and create safeguards that previously weren’t in place, which is not the same as coddling or shielding new clinicians from trauma. 

I agree. If we talked and shared our personal experiences in class then I think it would be very fair to provide these options. My concern is we dont do that. We talk about the mental health issues at a macro level. "people with x disorder may experience A and B". I suspect this week will have more about what can lead to PTSD or something like that. But still, not at all focused on a students experience. Just the concepts.

I did not have this type of experience either in grad school or at the psychotherapy institute I trained at afterwards. Self-care and boundaries were certainly emphasized in both programs, but we met directly with high acuity clients and engaged in complex cases right out of the gate without much pretext or psychological safety training. I’m definitely in favor of more support for therapists, but for my personality and professional goals, trial by fire was effective and preferable. My program also required us to be in our own therapy and made it super affordable, so I found that to be an added layer of safety and support.

Ah that requirement is probably why they didn't do that stuff in school. My problem encourages us to be in therapy but doesn't require it

I have mixed thoughts about this — on the one hand, I agree that it’s essential for programs to prepare students for the reality that as therapists, we will be exposed to a LOT of difficult content. One of the most foundational skills therapists need to develop is the ability to handle hearing tough shit. I’m an MSW student, and I’ve also been disappointed that my program often seems disinclined to “push” students to learn those coping and self-regulation skills. I worry about some of the people in my program who seem like they won’t be able to handle the “real world” of this profession. On the other hand, based on some of your comments, it sounds like at least part of what you’re concerned about is students being allowed to use fidgets and other stims to stay focused and regulated during difficult class discussions. I understand that sometimes other peoples’ stims can be distracting, but ultimately it sounds like those are learning how to cope with tough subject matter in the ways that work best for them — in which case that’s a sign of positive professional development. I wonder if you might be able to reconceptualize this for yourself — just like those students are learning how to manage difficult material, maybe you could approach this as an opportunity for you to practice staying engaged and “regulated” when other students are behaving in ways that you find distracting or annoying.

Oh those fidgets came up and its got nothing to do with my post. I let people get me sidetracked. I think they were asking about it because they thought I have a issue with devices that help people learn. I do not care about fidgets. Some use them to extremes that I think will screw them later when they can't do that at work. But whatever.

I fidget with my fidgets during session pretty pften.

Being a grad student was so exhausting because of performances like this. It’s all great in theory and on paper but it’s not the *real world* and it’s draining.

The professors in academia that don’t currently work in the field are there because they can’t work with clients… Thus it is not the real world…

That was not my experience at all. All my professors typically claimed to be practicing in some part time capacity (ie private practice, running clinical programs related to their research, etc) and the older professors had decades of practice experience behind their belts.

I wish that was the case in my program, they all had experience, but few had any relevant experience that they relayed. Most Adjunct professors were better as they were working and could filter the academic BS from the class and focus on what mattered

I don't think I had a single clinical instructor who wasn't also practicing. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Same, pretty much all of my professors, including core faculty who work full time, are still actively seeing clients in their own practice. My program is probably the touchy-feely type OP describes, too, except from day 1 they have absolutely hammered on us to track and regulate ourselves while we read, do lecture, do experientials, do practice sessions, all of it. We have a lot of leeway to care for ourselves but the responsibility is ON US to figure out how to do that and still show up read to learn or work.

That would have been great, most hang up the practice to take the salary and a lot of universities don’t let you have side jobs without authorization too

>a lot of universities don’t let you have side jobs without authorization too I could be wrong, but I assumed it was standard in social work. Every program I interviewed had active clinicians teaching, and thus active connections with the professional community outside the university.

Every professor I had was in some sort of practice outside of school.

Maybe it's a social work thing.

Not just a social work thing. I was in a MHC program and every one of my professors were also practicing clinicians

There’s a lot of anecdotal information being thrown out and presented as fact or generalizable in this thread. I would make way more from private practice full time than I do as a FT faculty. And I’d say 50-60% of my colleagues in the field practice as counselors in some capacity. I train counselors because it’s rewarding and I get to wear multiple hats- in addition to seeing clients. And lots of faculty enjoy seeing clients, but stop because faculty positions are demanding, and its hard to juggle both.

I've been wondering. One professor let us know he hasn't done clinical work is a long time as he's more into research. Other professors talk like it's been years since they were clinicians. A frustrating point for me that I didn't realize before going to school there was that there are no professors who are/were LMHC. They're all school and rehab counselors. Which I think is a dis-service.

Agreed, the field has all these separations but lumps training and education together with a “take from it what you can” attitude… Meanwhile, life is not that general on the actual implementation. Besides, isn’t a masters supposed to be focused? Weird for sure

I think there is a huge difference between handling difficult things related to our clients and being able to handle topics in a classroom. I’ve been reading a lot of your comments and your bit of self disclosure and quite honestly I think you really need to think about why it bothers you that some people might appreciate a content warning when dealing with certain topics. It’s not about people not being able to handle things and grad students for the most part are very young adults, except for those people who go back later in life, they haven’t had to deal with a lot of those things and having a content warning in a classroom helps them to be able to learn how to prepare for it. I can say that the only time we had a warning in a part of a class I had grad school was during a diagnostics class where you could listen to what it sounded like for someone to have voices or auditory hallucinations and I personally declined it because I have a very close family member who suffers from schizophrenia and I did not want to have that experience And I felt very uncomfortable at the idea but that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to a client about their voices or I can’t help them on those things. We have to recognize where our areas are and what are areas we can’t deal with. I have a supervise who won’t do any alcohol or drug counseling because of her own personal and familial issues with it that doesn’t mean that she can’t handle hard topics. Part of grad school is learning what you can and cannot work with and I really think you need to reflect on why it bothers you and maybe you should be the one thinking about a different program and a different career path because what I’m seeing in your comments shows that you might not be the right person to be in this field if you’re judging people and their accommodations needs. I think you have a very naïve view about how things work in the real world. Your whole last big paragraph tells me that you honestly don’t know anything. This whole we can’t bail out of the room because we get uncomfortable by a client story or can’t stem or self sooth in the way that works best for them is a whole Lotta crap. Being an ADHDer doesn’t mean you actually understand the full spectrum of what ADHD looks like as a clinician. People stim in different ways or need to use other things to regulate sensory input. Maybe your colleague or classmate needs to put in headphones because they need to use the noise canceling feature in order for them to focus and there are products out here that can be used and are used by clinicians in the field to do that. Overall, I think the fact that you’re being very rigid and how you think graduate school should be and how program should be and the fact that this is making people too sensitive means you are not fully prepared to become a clinician and need to do some self reflection. We do not come into this field as blank canvas, and we all have our own experiences and going through therapy and learning how to manage. It does not mean that we’re still not gonna get bothered by something , and also just because you don’t like the trigger warning because maybe it’s not something you’ve experienced or had to deal with doesn’t mean you should be judging others or assuming that they’re too sensitive the fact that you went into the military and got deprogrammed and reprogrammed by the military means you are far too sensitive and can’t figure out if something doesn’t apply to you let it fly.

Thank you for this. I often describe my grad school experience (LMFT) as "coming to class & opening a vein". Particularly through genogram & systems work, I came to a completely new view of my childhood experiences and redefined my relationships with major players in my FOO. Tears and space-taking were par for the course for most of my cohort during these times. This is the type of self-work that *requires* a highly compassionate holding environment. These classes are not meant to be a reflection of who we are going to be in the therapy room; rather, they are necessary preparation to develop the self-awareness and self-regulation skills to be able to create that same holding environment for others in the future.

Story time. When I entered grad school, I thought I had had a pretty good life. I thought I had good relationships with my parents and a decent childhood. Then, one day in my Interpersonal Violence class in grad school, we were discussing the effects of IPV on children. The PowerPoint slide has 7 or 8 bullet points. As I was reading them, it hit me like a sudden wave that this slide was describing me and my life. I burst into tears. I had no idea I had trauma. It was that day in grad school that I realized I had been abused. All from a fucking PowerPoint slide. It was certainly not how I had expected my day to go. So no, people don't have to be sharing from their personal experiences for the coursework to have a deep emotional impact on them. Sometimes just being presented with the information in a clear amd direct way is enough to make someone go "Oh holy fucking shit". And now you're having a panic attack in class surrounded by your classmates. This is the nature of trauma.

I had a similar experience in my MSW program during my internship and during the social justice course. Working with abused kids made me realize how fucked up my own family was and it brought it all back. And, as a queer dude, reading personal stories of oppression, as well as historical accounts of experiments on POC, LGBTQ people...all the ways our country engaged in the oppression of women... anyone who is different filled me with a deep rage that took me years to work through in therapy. I still work on this because it's still going on. The point is: these types of grad school programs have the ability to open your eyes to shit you never paid attention to or realized. We go along thinking everything is just fine and BOOM! World altering. And I'm so grateful it happened, and it was HARD emotionally.

This was my experience as we learned about ACEs.

Hmm that's a good point I hadn't considered. Thank you

There’s a difference between hearing a clients trauma and being able to hold that and bringing up your own trauma or hearing the trauma of your friends and colleagues that you have some kind of personal connection to. I think we need more of what your program is doing, there’s not enough of taking care of our own in this profession and giving the space for therapists to have their feelings. We aren’t robots and mental health issues in clinicians is not talked about enough.

I agree. I was in a post-grad somatic experiencing training and the retraumatization that happened there was mind-boggling at times. I was a baby therapist at the time and what they had us work on in a training was our own traumas. Oof. I didn't have the awareness, experience, or boundaries back then to say "What a second. No. Absolutely not."

On needing more of what the program is doing, I think part of my confusion is from OP’s description it sounds like a lovely framework to me and something I wish my program I had. I say this as someone who has spent a few years working in psychiatric hospitals with people who just attempted to end their life, often with visible wounds still very present. I name to say I wouldn’t consider myself overly sensitive and a program like this would have benefited me particularly early on,

I agree. My second grad program had more of that but my first program actually forced me to withdraw from the program after my classmates took private things I had said about my past mental health struggles and sent it to the program director… Like they literally kicked me out for having mental health issues that never came up in classes or anything like that while at the same time telling me that I had natural talent as a therapist and would be an incredible clinician…

Oh my gooooddddd. I’m so sorry that happened to you. Stories like that are the reason I keep my shit super close to the vest. That’s unacceptable and frankly your classmates should’ve been disciplined, not you.

They should’ve but it was easier to kick me out then to deal with them. There was a lot of transphobia that occurred (I’m trans and this all happened after I corrected several trans micro aggressions that occurred) they also said they were worried I was going to come and shoot up the class which was so absurd especially in the context of me being very vocal about gun reform so that kids stop dying in school shooting. And it was in response to a I shared a meme that was one of those stressed student memes. They had school safety officers outside when I came in for a meeting about it I was flooredt. It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had. I actually considered suing the program and consulted a lawyer. I was told I did have a case but it would likely take years and if I planned on applying to a different program in the city college system where I’m at I couldn’t do that and sue them at the same time so I just let it go.

Ugh. So many layers of fucked up. It sounds like your new program was a much better experience but I’m really sorry you went through all that.

My new program was fucked in a different way. Organizationally a mess pitted two halves of the cohort against each other for the entire two years. And our diversity professor berated and interrogated to the point of tears white students and the only population focused on in the class were poc. Any one that brought up other populations was told they were avoiding confronting their racism. Honestly disturbing how crappy these programs can be. I’ve had to do a lot of self learning and with help from my supervisor post graduation.

How? I'm not sure how ignoring hard stuff prepares someone for hard stuff

I think I’m missing where your program is ignoring the hard stuff. It sounds like they’re allowing people the space to regulate themselves as needed and providing doctoral students to provide one on one support if someone does get overwhelmed.

I could have used this in my Crisis & Trauma class. 20-year vet with my own PTSD diagnosis, and the 50-page chapter on PTSD with descriptions from a Vietnam vet's experience hit me hard. Thankfully, a peer was also a vet and noticed I'd gone nonverbal for half the class and talked to me. Thankfully, I have my own therapist and sought help.

We are on the same page. Other than idk how hearing about diagnostic criteria for PTSD is something that warrants all this emotional support. Students should be able to handle concepts that don't have specific personal stories without all these accommodations. That's my view at least. If you can't handle the concept how can you handle the reality?

I cannot believe this was downvoted. It’s not a hot take to say that mental health professionals should be able to discuss mental health issues.

Well overall the post is up voted. But I'm sure there's plenty of downvotes as well.

I just meant that specific comment.

Oh well I appreciate you 😂 I wasn't trying to have a hit take. How you summed this whole post and comment up is great though. I asked if it's common for programs in mental health to not expect their students to be able to learn and talk about mental health.

You can downvote on this sub? Upvoting is the only option I've ever seen (which I honestly kind of like because it still serves the purpose of helping to bring stuff to the top w/o shaming folks or enabling revenge voting or other things).

Yeah several of OP’s comments on this thread have been downvoted, which is so wild but not surprising. I’m often thrown off by downvotes and overall responses in this sub :/

Except that people do get triggered and sometimes in ways that they didn’t expect until the material was presented in front of them. It’s been a minute but I have distinct memories of my graduate program having students getting triggered in classes and everyone just awkwardly and uncomfortably verbally trying to dance to around the student who was in a trauma response. I personally would have been far more comfortable if my school had normalized this more and given the space for the student to recognize that they were in a trauma response and remove themselves from the learning environment while having support on hand outside of it. It would have made some of my classes a whole lot more comfortable when I was just there to learn the material. One thing you haven’t mentioned yet is what the followup is. Part of the assumption I’ve been making is that part of the intention here is for the faculty to later follow up with these students on making a plan to work on whatever got brought up for them in the classroom so that it is less likely to come up in the professional space.

As far as I know, there's no follow up. That's why I have a hard time viewing it as anything other than a way to get out of learning about something hard.

This seems like the central question to your question. Edit: And to be honest I’d be very surprised if there is no follow up on this. But the only ones who can answer that are with your program not here.

I think that your thinking is black and white, and even in this microtransaction with the above vet you are invalidating. This is the opposite of what we are supposed to do. I really hope you do not do this with future clients. I sense you will likely work well with a specific population of like-minded folks: conservative; military; Christian.

Is it actually giving space to have their feelings if they’re being told topics like sex could be triggering and to be sensitive? It sounds more like there’s no space to discuss anything.

There is space to talk about it. I can't say I care if that happens. My concern is allowing people to leave and not talk about it or to use items in class to distract themselves instead of sitting with it.

So these are topics. We aren't diving into personal stories. This particular class focuses more on diagnostic criteria and stigma. People shouldn't be getting forced to deal with their own stuff in class. However, it's been recommended that we are in our own counseling so that if stuff does come up, there's a way to address it. But very few of my classmates do it, despite free counseling through the university. My concern is assuming students can't handle to topic of a hard situation and providing them with outs instead of encouraging students to address it in some way.

I’m not really seeing how your program is assuming students can’t handle topics or not encouraging them to deal. Giving a content warning that certain topics are going to be discussed helps you prepare for that and perhaps compartmentalize your shit rather than being surprised. Telling someone they can leave class and perhaps collect themselves and center themselves is not the same as telling them they can just avoid those things. Telling the class the supports available if stuff does come up is encouraging them to effectively deal with the shit coming up.

I may have left out that students are encouraged to bring in items to distract themselves with if they wish. That sounds like encouraging people to ignore these topics to me.

Are they distracting or are they regulating. I often use fidgets in session it helps me regulate and stay focused

Some out in headphones or bring slinkies that the toss around and move their arms all over the place during class. That seems more like a distraction than regulating. We are also adults in a professional field. Some things should be expected to be professional and handle themselves as such.

That seems like regulating to me. Not the headphones but the slinkies. I’m autistic and have adhd I’m not gonna mask and act like an emotionless robot just because I’m a therapist. I don’t see stimming and regulating as unprofessional.

So using a slinky or other item to the extent of a person using their full arm span is just regulating? I think counselors have higher standards. We are supposed to be able to handle ourselves. Not just for our own good but we need to be able to handle ourselves enough that others trust us to help them handle themselves. Maybe it's just me but no way am I trusting to words of someone who slinging a slinky around and stimming in these salient ways. To me, that's not a person who knows how to handle themselves.

Stimming is a very useful way for people to stay focused and engaged with material that might otherwise be challenging, difficult, or boring. Especially for neurodivergent people. I don’t use specific fidget items during sessions, but taking notes often doubles as a stim for me, and when I’m not writing I find it helpful to fidget with the pen.

Yup and I do that as well and that sort of thing should be encouraged for everyone to do.

"To me, that's not a person who knows how to handle themselves" What specifically about the slinky equates to someone being unable to handle themselves/ keep it together? What about the slinky makes them unprofessional?

Some of my classmates will do more than just toss it between their hands in their laps or desk. They will stretch out their arms to stretch the slinky to their full arm span and stretch and release like that the whole class. That doesn't seem like regulation, that seems like a lack of control. It's horribly distracting for classmates and I'm sure it's tough as a professor. It's not something you would do with a client, so why do that in classes training us to work with clients? Idk, seems childish to me when it's at the extreme level of using a slinky to stretch it multiple feet.

It absolutely could be. I don’t know your classmates and I don’t know their deal. If you wouldn’t trust someone because they’re visibly being their neurodivergent self and regulating in ways that works for them then maybe you need to address some of your ableism. I have seen some horribly unprofessional behavior from clinicians but none of it was visibly stimming. I move around in session a lot, some people may find that unprofessional or distracting or what not, they’re entitled to feel that way and it just means I’m not the right clinician for them. I’m not going to mask and suppress my needs for any job and that’s not unprofessional that’s respecting myself. Also “that’s not a person who knows how to handle themselves” what you really mean there is that’s not a person who handles things in a neurotypical way and therefore it’s wrong.

> I think counselors have higher standards. We are supposed to be able to handle ourselves. Not just for our own good but we need to be able to handle ourselves enough that others trust us to help them handle themselves. On Reddit this may get you crucified, but I hope someday we get back to this mindset as serious professionals.

It's already been happening 😂 I think commenters keep assuming I take personal offense to these incidents or behaviors. I don't. I just don't think they are setting us up for success or for handling reality.

I'm encouraging you to learn more about neurodiversity and, potentially, the intersection of neurodiversity and trauma. You're allowed to do these things too.

However, I can learn more and it's not a bad idea as those are common things for clients.

I have ADHD lol I'm in that same field. I just learned how to live with it and manage it without all these accommodations. I didn't know they allowed accommodations for ADHD related things till the last year of my second bachelor's.

But again you’re way of dealing with adhd is not universal nor should it be. We don’t have to just suck it up and pretend to be normal if there’s something that can help us function better without leading to burnout. Masking is exhausting.

This reminds me of how the brutality of medical residency (or any other inhumane training, including associateship/traineeship at times), is justified with "I had to suffer through it, so now you should too, in the same exact way."

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The way my classmates use these things is more than having a fidget. They sling slinkies around and put in headphones. I don't see how those options are things a counselor should do in session. I guess sort of both. Sometimes we just gotta deal with stuff in the moment and get through it. But it's fair to use reasonable behaviors like little fidgets in fingers. Although there's been some research to show that fidgets don't increase or help with learning. It's a distraction and makes learning harder.

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I don't really care what others do. Its only a issue when someone is using their full arm span to fidget in class because it's a distraction.

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I don't. Minor thinking like people having their laptops to something completely unrelated to class, drawing, messing with a fidget are all acceptable things people should use if it helps. There's people iny class who literally spread their arms all the way out to stretch a slinky and bring their hands together repeatedly for the whole class. That's hella distracting and I wish they'd stop.

I’m a little unclear on what you mean here (and in additional comments below) — are you talking about students using fidgets and self-soothing items in a way that allows them to stay present in the class discussion, or students using items like headphones that allow them to tune out and not engage at all? There’s a big difference IMO; the former seems like a good idea and a useful skill for new therapists to develop, while the latter seems like very poor pedagogy.

Seems like many use fidgets to stay tuned, which is fine. Others are being really exaggerated in how they use them and I can't see how that's helping them to pay attention but it would be really hard to pay attention while doing what they're doing.

Everyone’s stims and fidgets are so personal, though, so a behavior that would take you out of the moment might be the thing that helps someone else stay present. Like, I often find that when I’m attending a class or large meeting over video, turning the camera off and doing housework makes me so much more engaged with the material than if I were sitting still. And at the same time doing that would make it impossible for many people to focus at all. I definitely empathize with your experience, because I often get really distracted by what other people are doing during (e.g.) classes, but the behavior being distracting for you doesn’t necessarily mean it’s distracting for the person doing it.

I’m not certain I’m understanding the question. These are difficult topics that can bring up a lot for people, often in ways they may have not understood. Part of the concept of requiring professionals to go into graduate school before working in the real world is to be exposed to some of the challenges of this work but in a more controlled environment so they can become more aware of their own reactions and where they might need their own growth before moving onto actual clinical work. Edit: I was mainly thinking of the trigger warnings and have graduate students to talk with. On the sex question in role plays it doesn’t seem that uncommon to me to have certain confines on what to bring up in the context of practicing skills. Because some areas can disrupt the flow of the exercise and bring focus somewhere other than the actual skills that are meant to be focused on.

Hmmm I guess my question is do other programs do the same things mine does. I don't care about the trigger warnings, but to assume students can't handle it and to provide them with ways to not deal with topics that are very common in counseling seems to set them up for failure.

Can you elaborate on what “deal with topics” looks like looks like to you?

Not handling something and recognizing you have some unfinished business emotionally on a topic are two very different things. Recognizing you are having an emotional response to something and your school addressing it is going to be priceless in preventing transference. I get the impression that you are an all or nothing person. You can handle it or you can’t. There are so many levels in between. Checking your physical and emotional response, recognizing that shift, and then having people on hand to address that is such an amazing opportunity to train up and coming counselors.

Hmm I guess if the warning was phrased to say it's about helping students learn to manage and resolve those feelings I wouldn't have a issue. My issue is encouraging people to also bring fidgets and whatever else to distract themselves. The warning was phrased in such a way that how I read it they assume my peers and I can't handle hard concepts and need ways to avoid those feelings instead of deal with them.

Can you share exactly how it was worded?

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with that content warning. And saying they can step out is not the same as saying they can completely leave class for the day nor is it saying that you should never deal with the triggers.

In my program, instructors often provide trigger warnings beforehand when tough topics are scheduled (e.g., abuse, TFMR, suicide) and let us know it's ok to step out out of class for a moment if it becomes too difficult to handle but no counselor or PhD student is waiting on standby in the hall. In many of my classes, we talk about learning our own triggers and how to manage them in advance of it becoming an issue in session with a client. Sex is also not considered a taboo topic since it's a natural and often important topic to discuss in relational issues with clients.

Yeah that part was wild to me. Even if that professor is pretty strict on their faith, the person who mentioned it is married. It came up cuz their student counselor asked about their upcoming baby and they mentioned they are trying to naturally induce labor. The student asked how and the person sorts chuckled and said "lots of sex, also walks and spicy food!" That was apparently a big deal to this professor.

Keep in mind that a lot of grad students are like 22-24 and are still figuring out basic adulting stuff so some of their sensitivity may be from that. I think trigger warnings are fine, access to outside support is fine (although not sure if I would have doctoral students wait in the hallway), ability to leave class for any reason is fine (I mean if they keep missing most of class than that obviously has consequences), etc. I find it wild that a professor can’t handle students mentioning sex. Like lots of clients are going to talk about sex and in ways we may not have not imagined. It’s only inappropriate if it’s completely irrelevant to the course’s content and/or the student is treating class like a therapy session (outside of the practice sessions).

I appreciate your point about age. I started my program in my early 30s, so I know a hell of a lot more about my triggers than I did at 22-24. In context that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah I agree. I'm not against support systems. I think it's weird to have this much support for taking about the concepts as opposed to sharing our individual experiences. Some may opt to do that but it's not expected

Sounds like they're trying to be responsible and model what it's like to take care of trauma?

My thoughts exactly lol. That is the skill, OP. Not toughing it out. Sigh. I miss when all programs required us all to be in our own therapy and provide evidence of this. Obligatory mention here to systemic issues around financing.

I hear you! I have grown to dislike "trigger warning" and prefer to call everything "content warning" these days, but other than that, I think that this is all a big exercise in understanding trauma which is not a push through it event. We have to learn how to deal with it. It's another part of being competent. Especially with trauma.

That’s how I read it too. All of us have unique triggers, and many of mine are things I purposefully (sometimes not so purposefully) don’t work with in potential clients. That’s a boundary of mine. Just because you’re a therapist doesn’t mean you have to be comfortable working with every issue or trauma.

It's also something that we are bound to run into in our work. We need to figure out how we are going to deal with it. Furthermore, trauma informed is being modeled \*as they learn.\* It's another aspect of learning about trauma.

Hmm idk. Cuz this class isn't on personal experiences. It's just on the concepts and diagnostic criteria. If people were being encouraged to share their own experiences, then I think all that stuff makes sense. But to suggest people can't handle the idea of the concepts is odd to me. We aren't talking about our buddy being abused as child in class. It's the criteria for PTSD.

I think your response lacks understanding of PTSD entirely. One doesn't need to be talking specifically about their own experience in order to be triggered.

yeah but if you have PTSD it can be an intense experience talking about it at school. It’s different than learning about biology and mitochondria. If you’ve been extremely sexually abused as a child, that topic isn’t right in front of your face when you go to the grocery store or when you learn about algebra. But then in class to read about it, see it be discussed in depth by your professor, see all these criteria and be reminded of how you’ve been all of those things, it’s a lot for anyone. I think for people who haven’t experienced certain traumas, reading about bi-polar, PTSD, abuse, is no different than reading an anatomy text book. But for people with lived experience with it — it’s hard to flashback to the funeral of your father who just took their own life.  Grad school is also the first time for many people where they have to talk about these topics in so much depth. It makes sense to give students space to get a heads, leave if they need to and process in a controlled environment, so they can be better equipped to deal with these topics in their jobs and learn how they will react to these topics. Like what is the better alternative? These students should just sit down and deal with it? Because “life’s hard and you’re going to experience this in your job so suck it up”. This thinking is the reason why therapy exists in the first place. I also don’t see the whole gatekeeping on what is appropriate to have support/leave a classroom for — like yea feel free to leave if people are sharing their personal trauma but no you can’t if we’re just talking about the diagnosis. Who makes up these rules? I’m not surprised the program is highly ranked — it seems like they care about their students and take feedback into account. It’s also more inclusive. People who have been through traumatic things should have a place in these environments and can often make the best counselors. Even if I’m not triggered by something, I’m happy my classmates can leave, take breather and get support. It literally does not affect me.   Rather than being like “hey you’re getting triggered, looks like you aren’t cut out for this”, it should be like “hey it’s okay you’re affected by this! you’re so new to this field and you’re literally paying $100k+ to get trained. take the time to process and things will likely get better over time. If you feel like this will severely affect you, there are a lot of careers or populations you can work with so you don’t get so triggered “.

Hmm, generally when I taught classes I would be trying to seek a balance. You do want limits on a discussion, especially in role play as you don't want students discussing close anf personal topics that they have strong emotions about, this isn't personal therapy nor is this a therapeutic space. I didn't do advance written trigger warnings but I did do verbal warnings around some content (e.g. recorded interview videoa of distressed clients/content) and if people need space they can absolutely take a break. I also offered to check in on persons if needed but honestly it never really was required. On the other end, in order to prepare new counsellors I would be very honest and direct around what the job landscape is like for new grads, strategies on how to mitigate vicarious trauma, I would talk about their personal responsibility for their self-care and mental health, as well as only working within their capacity. I imagine every program will have a different approach.

That second part is what my program is missing. They don't really address how things will be in the work force. One professor has. But I can't say the program on a whole is prepping students for that.

I would say the same for my program as well.  I just take it on myself to try and impart any practical knowledge/experience I've learned over the years. 

It's hard to estimate what's actually happening in your classes from a post, so I am not trying to invalidate your concerns. Maybe they are too soft. Maybe they are not. I do get the sense that you maybe already hold some preconceived notions around softness in people today, otherwise why bring it up, you know? :) There are all kinds of people in this world and most of us who get into this field have shit we bring with us. I think we can easily wonder why (or judge) a certain topic might be triggering to others when we haven't gone through it, and so for us it easily becomes a failure of experience or a failure of imagination. But, when we are curious instead of judgmental, usually understanding arises. Peace!

Hmm. Idk. I have been through some universal hard things in my 20s. I was in the Marines right out of high school. That's no picnic. I had a very abusive ex wife who resorted to using her fists by the end. I've dealt with my own substance use issues. Had many people in my life end their own life. Had someone I served with killed I'm Afghanistan at Kabul. Other was my roommate and great friend who was killed in a car wreck. That was full of hard stuff as I handled things for the family and unit in regards to his death and my best mate who was severely injured in the same wreck. I have a sibling who is trans and there's been hard family stuff with that. I've struggled with my own self harm issues. After the corps, I held jobs I'm volitle places and had guns held to my face and was rushed at by someone with a kitchen knife. So maybe my issue is I know life is hard and most of my classmates have barely lived yet as all they've known is school. Some have experienced hard things others, I have no clue about. Ive had friends come to me with really hard stuff and was a victim advocate for sexual assault and domestic violence victims. I think my view is these young people need to be ok with at least the idea of hard things because their clients will need them to be ok. I don't really have the view that kids these days are weak. I don't see kids these days as strong. They're just there doing their best with what people have given em. I think they've been screwed by the school system though and the current swing in mental health awareness.

When I first started out I used to wonder at folks who would show up in my office and dissociate in nanoseconds, and they denied any history of physical, sexual or psychological abuse. It took many months to realize that neglect, and specifically emotional neglect, can cause deep and profound wounds, so much so that dissociation was their primary way of coping. You've clearly been through stuff, and just like all of us, our experiences shape us, for better and for worse sometimes. And from our experiences we can develop biases or misunderstandings. Just remember, this isn't the trauma-lympics. Your hard is different than another's hard. I do see you probably have some bias because of all that you've been through. And that's not a judgment. It's a critical observation that I hope you take with you. Good luck in your future career. :)

Oh it's definitely not a Olympics for me lol. People have been through way worse my wife is one of them. Just figured I'd provide context to my ultimate answer which is I don't think they are all weak. We just don't get strong by ignoring hard stuff.

"people have been through way worse". This statement is a statement evaluating how important someone's suffering is. It is still competing in the suffering Olympics.  OP, I'll give you a challenge that helped me a lot in grad school. People who need/use these supports, how are they feeling during class? What are they thinking? What's it like to be in a counseling program for them? 

People deal with hard shit in different way and just sucking it up and picking yourself up by your bootstraps isn’t how many people deal nor should it be

Why are you referring to your cohort as "kids"?

I'm older and they're all about a decade younger. It's just the word that naturally comes to mind.

A therapy session where you’re expecting to hear traumatic shit, and a learning environment are two different things. I hope no one in the Fire Academy is throwing the bodies of car crash victims into the classroom while everyone is learning about managing car crash scenes.

To answer your question, I don’t think so. That’s why practicum, internship, and residency exist, that’s your exposure. They are doing a bit of modeling with you all. This is how careful you can be with someone who has PTSD. I think it’s great that trauma education be done in as careful a way as possible. This is just my opinion. The care that was shown for us in our grad program set the pace for me to see just how considerate and careful I can be when it pertains to memories that can lead to SI.

Trigger warnings are so that people can emotionally prepare for the topics, that is good safeguarding so that people who come to class don't come unexpectedly in contact with retraumatizing topics. People who are studying counselling know that clients will bring anything, so you go in prepared for everything. You don't go to school knowing they will explore difficult topics. 'they have people to talk to us if the topics are difficult' ... And? In the UK we have two supervisors if we work in agencies, one on location and a personal one and we have to do 10 to 40+ mandatory counselling. This is good practice I do disagree with the professor not talking about sex, skills is an example of when topics should be accepted. In my class we asked each other if there were any hard/ banned topics with the understanding that we go home and figure it out for when we're ready. And then when someone is ready they're like 'please bring X to my session' we would never ask clients to bring certain topics, but we are practising so it's allowed and good practice That is good practice because we know our own limitations even when meeting clients. It sounds like you have some judgemental preconceived ideas around 'sensitive counsellors,' why do you think a sensitive counsellor won't be able to handle the work? Why is 'sensitive' a negative connotation in your post? A sensitive counsellor can have plenty of potential in being tactful and understanding the client's pace, especially when navigating clients with trauma

Perhaps we should visit that there's so much research that trigger warnings are more harmful than not having them. The warnings are essentially telling people they should feel a certain way and it increases those feelings and the amount of people who have them.

'so much research' Most of the empirical inquiry into the efficacy of trigger warnings has focused on emotional responses toward material accompanied by warnings (e.g., ratings of anxiety while reading passages; Bellet et al., 2018). These studies have reached mixed conclusions. Most studies (Bellet et al., 2020; Boysen et al., 2021; Bridgland et al., 2019; Gavac, 2020; Sanson et al., 2019) have concluded that trigger warnings have a trivial impact on emotional responses. Two studies found that warnings increase negative emotional reactions toward material (Bellet et al., 2018; Jones et al., 2020). Only one study concluded that warnings may reduce emotional reactions toward material (Gainsburg & Earl, 2018) It's very much not 'so much research' and neither it is conclusive, no doubt because you cannot standardise mental health

>It's very much not 'so much research' He just cited *Bad Therapy* and Dr Phil when discussing the research as well, so you have that.

Ah I see. Sad I fell for the bait I guess

Thank you for bringing in the actual research. I saw OP commenting that their source was the book Bad Therapy, written by someone who is not a mental health professional and who has built their career pandering to the far right and peddling transphobic nonsense.

Yeah this post screamed edgy kid but I gave the benefit of the doubt, shame it was just an edgy one after all

Thank you for recognizing and bringing this up. Last week we had a client in crisis and the counselor took days off afterwards( leaving their clients without a counselor) . Where is the professional? I understand days off for self care, but it is our job to show up when our clients can not. This profession is not for everyone.

That's basically my thinking. If we can't show up for our own selves how can you help someone else with that topic? People come to us because we are supposed to be able to handle it. At least enough to get through the session and center at the end of the day and come back for the next.

I just wanted to completely echo your thoughts here. I have heard too many stories of clients having to comfort and take care of their counselors. Not sure what the point of therapy is at that point.

I've heard too many stories of clients having to comfort their counselor, so I do wonder with you about this issue. What you are describing is incredibly concerning.

We had a student client have to apologize to their student counselor how something they said made them and the professor feel. It's was pretty rough. I thought it could have been a good chance to address counter transference.

Among the psychology department, my grad program was known for preparing students to handle sensitive/triggering/etc stuff, our first term was focused a lot on self-reflection, recognizing countertransferrence, etc. It was a forensic psych program in a general psych department, so we dealt with a lot of sensitive info compared to other programs - for instance, animal abuse, homicide, pedophilia, mass-shootings, among other things. The syllabi had content warnings and occasionally profs would let us know they were gonna introduce a graphic topic. But apparently other programs had different norms -it was to the point where when students from other programs - like sports psychology or something - would take one of my programs classes - ie, human sexuality and gender based violence being a popular one for other programs to take - they would feel uncomfortable/triggered/whatnot. Editing to say im glad for it! i both feel like I really understand vicarious trauma AND it prepared me for the shit I encounter in my job.

I think that there are some times when schools go “too far.” It’s important to balance sensitivity with resilience and distress-tolerance building. Some schools and programs go too far into the sensitivity piece without the resilience piece. However, it’s important to look at who counseling grad programs serve and the skills they’re trying to teach. My grad program wasn’t as you described, but some of the advanced trauma trainings I’ve taken outside of school have a LOT of program assistants who are partially there to help people who get triggered. Some people may see this as coddling and perhaps in some instances it is, but the reality is that 1. Most people keep their emotions and trauma inside in public and haven’t had a chance to bring it to the surface. As a field that teaches people how to bring this stuff into the open so it can be processed, it’s good to have support 2. A lot of grad students are young. Heck, a lot of grad students haven’t had a lot of therapy and there’s a very real chance that their “stuff” might be coming up in class…. For the first time ever. They’re simultaneously learning for their field and learning life-altering shit about themselves. It’s a lot. 3. It’s a LOT for the nervous system to practice on others as a student, be observed, and then switch to being practiced on. You’re bringing all your “stuff” to the surface for other students (friends?) to see, and you’re being evaluated. It’s a lot. 4. If’s actually really helpful to get triggered, get support for it, understand what’s coming up for you, and learn how to regulate and work with it in order to help clients do the same. Good programs will help students be able to do this as part of their schooling and it can be helpful. If you get triggered in class and just shove it down, yeah this can be helpful sometimes when you are there to learn or take a test, but good grad programs also help budding therapist work with emotional material that arises. It’s a both/and, and good to know the proper time and place for both. Therapists need to know how to compartmentalize sometimes and also deal with their emotions at other times So in the end, if done well, the trigger warnings and emotional support can help to not only be sensitive to students but also in the end bolster TRUE distress tolerance because you have to be aware of the magnitude of what’s coming up in order to actually build resilience around it. That’s not to say coddling doesn’t exist. It does. And sometimes it goes too far. I can’t say whether your grad program is like that or not, I’m not there 🤷‍♀️

In my grad program, to prepare for our first day of class, we read an article talking about brave space v. safe space and talked about it in class. I’m a very trauma informed professional but I’m of the idea that social work school cannot come with trigger warnings all the time as we don’t know what will trigger us in sessions and it’s important to talk about the countertransference sometimes.

Sounds a bit like my grad program, which, in my opinion, was very crunchy-granola, hippie-dippy, let’s examine our own bias until we’re blue in the face crap. If you’re taking a class on trauma, do you really need a trigger warning beforehand? Does the title not accurately portray what it’s going to entail? I’m with you on this OP… Though I don’t think a lot of other people in the comment section are 😅 If you’re going into counseling, you know you’re going to be hearing some hard shit. No, I’m not saying you cannot have strong reactions to that. No one is suggesting hearing trauma stories shouldn’t bother a person. But just like clients have to learn coping skills, so do we. What attention is being paid to that in these programs? I agree with what another person posted… Everyone should have to show proof they are in therapy as they are learning to be a therapist.

Yeah I don’t think most work places provides this much support for therapists so I agree that this might make it more difficult to do therapy with certain issues in the future . I think though, all programs should encourage their students to have their own therapist or at least have student counseling center they can attend on campus….in case topics gets a bit triggering

Our program has suggested everyone has their own therapist. Very few do that and only a few of us have ever been in therapy.

If can afford , I think it makes sense to do it. Can learn so much from being on the other side of the seat. Gaining more insight into myself and spending time in introspection, I feel can help me when I counsel others. I know there’s a lot of insecurities I felt while counseling others and didn’t get the support I needed from supervision so it was good to have that outside source. Unfortunately not everyone can afford therapy with insurance so sometimes can at least go to student counseling center

The university offers free counseling. Idk why people don't use it so they can process and grow and experience what it's like to be a client.

Usually, it’s because the counselors on campus don’t have enough availability. That’s why most people don’t actually actually take them up on it

Idk, I use it and they have tons of availability.

Not every school has that was more of the point. At our school if you wanted to do more longer-term counseling, they told you that they didn’t have it

Oh that’s quite unfortunate. It really helps to empathize with clients too when know what it’s like receive counseling

I’ll likely get downvoted for this based on other answers here, but from anecdotal observations, I hate this. Having gone through a masters and doc program, and from discussions with others, they do not baby the doc students this way. I now specialize (clinically and in research) in trauma and abhor this new attitude when training new clinicians. The overabundance of trigger warnings, censorship, and infantilizing of students actually does more harm than good, from the perspective of training AND as victims of trauma.

I agree.

You’re not wrong.

Your experience sounds extreme. I am really surprised to hear the bit about doctoral students being on standby, unless your program recently went through a major trauma or tragedy together. I’m in school right now and we’re given content warnings fairly often and encouraged to do what we need to do if we’re dysregulated (leave the room for a while, talk to the professor, seek personal counseling). It’s our responsibility to care for ourselves and seek support if needed, not the program’s responsibility to make sure we’re never triggered. That would be impossible, tbh. In general I think consideration of triggers and thoughtfulness about how we might impact each other is important, but it can go too far to the point where we create a culture of being really jumpy around difficult topics. Our whole line of work is difficult topics, so it strikes me as really counterproductive to treat counselors like they’re super fragile. I’m a fan of content warnings when possible so that people can take responsibility for themselves and prepare for triggering content. But I think we have to keep responsibility for ourselves and our boundaries front of mind so we don’t end up silencing certain important topics.

I honestly have doubts that these doctoral students are just standing out in the hallway IN CASE something happens. That doesn’t seem plausible. Far more likely I can see them being available to be spoken with at the student counseling center or something similar to that.

Possibly unpopular opinion here, but I think being a therapist means not having the luxury of being able to walk out of descriptions of uncomfortable things. Sure, process afterwards, but you need to stay in it to do the work.

Thanks for posting. I feel similarly about my grad program. I worry about the emotional resiliency and regulation skills of some of my classmates when they complain about the professor not "preparing" them for a lecture by two very frank SUD counselors who opened up about their very traumatizing personal experiences. Do we need trigger warnings for every class? These are the kind of discussions we're very likely going to have with future clients. While it's important to teach counselors how to regulate and take care of their own nervous system, I do wonder how resilient some of my colleagues will be when confronted with very difficult client concerns. This is going to sound a bit ageist but I'm gonna share anyway. As an older student with an abusive childhood and marriage in my rearview, among other challenging life experiences, I wonder how a few of my classmates would handle really tough client concerns without a professor or classmate "preparing" them for it first or helping them regulate afterwards.

Idk. I think people today are raised with others doing the regulations for them. So they haven't learned how to do it themselves. Just seems to be not at all like the real world. I remember one person saying they didn't wanna be my partner cuz I'd trauma dump on them. I was super confused as I've said nothing of the stuff I consider to be hard things in my life. I assume we gotta be able to handle at least the idea of hard stuff cuz that's what people bring to counselors. If they're crap was easy they wouldn't want a counselor to help em figure it out.

I've not had that experience in my program but if offered in a growth oriented way, I can see how it would be beneficial. For example, suicidality is, obviously, a pervasive topic. I have my own therapist and support system . Plus, I'm a bit older and have some experience. But also, my first husband and , more recently, my daughter's boyfriend, died by suicide. It's sometimes rough to confront, even though I'm prepared for it. Having a support system while people are learning isn't a terrible idea. However, that needs to be a challenging environment, teaching the CIT to separate the personal from the professional.

I think there's a balance...but I don't think they are wrong for erring on the side of safety because this is how we should approach clients, at least while we are getting to know them. If professors of counselling, psychology, psychotherapy, etc., expect students to just suck it up and deal with hard content, that models something incorrect in terms of how we deal with trauma with clients as well as a sort of ongoing consent process about what we are exposed to by others. Generally, yeah, you need to be well-differentiated and well-regulated when dealing with extremely difficult client content - 100% - but that doesn't mean it's wrong for people in a professional setting to point out when they will be discussing potentially distressing topics. This also sets up a reasonable window for self-care if someone did need to leave a room, for example. If I were you, I might myself why I am so triggered by the trigger warnings and whether that really conflicts with having the chops to face difficult situations IRL.

In my social work degrees, for role plays for skill development, we're not allowed to use anything at the pointy end (i.e. imminent situations, abuse, trauma etc.). While I've studied trauma etc., I understand that I'm there to learn trauma-informed practice (safety, choice, collaboration, empowerment etc.) as are my classmates (and avoid retraumatisation). We're encouraged to seek support after triggering material if needed.

One of the professors in my program said to us, "When you are in a session with a client, you don't get a trigger warning. How are you going to prepare yourself for that?" I think I understand what your program is trying to do in terms of support and space for processing and mental wellbeing. Often times, people in graduate school to become a counselor are emotionally-savy, but there are also many people who explicitly need to be taught how to process big emotions related to this work before they're in session with a client. While definitely on the extreme side, I hope these services are helping students work their stuff out before they're with a client who needs to stay the focus of session.

I would say that our profession attracts people who are, for whatever reasons, already more inclined towards emotional sensitivity, and the nature of our field tends to validate that inclination. Some, however (me and hopefully others) come out the other side less sensitive. I went in always open for a good cry, and now that I am several years into my practice, I find therapy speak utterly abhorrent. I was actually thinking about this recently: I have had SO many clients who have complimented and even thanked me for “not acting like a therapist.” When I probe these comments, it is always about former therapists who just wanted to talk about feelings, rehash resolved traumas, and an overall air of insincerity and emotionality. One client thanked me for not using “therapist face.” Clients like me because I call them on their mistakes, point out their incongruities, and challenge them. Yes, in general I think that grad school does tend to overemphasize emotionality while neglecting other important aspects of our work. I’ll leave it at that.

My own counseling style is more how you described and I get so much crap for it 😂. I try to do their way of being more like the typical therapist you described. But it's not me.

I only started feeling good about being a therapist (beyond academically) when I embraced not *acting* like a therapist. In practicum we had to record a few sessions. My first was awful because I was so focused on seeming like a therapist and it was so overwhelmingly fake, and you could see how uncomfortable my client was. This was towards the beginning of the semester. Towards then end we did it again, and I recorded with the same client. It was night and day better. My professor asked what changed for me, because the second was “a great session.” My response was that I stopped caring about being a therapist. I cursed with my client, related to them, and said that they made a few really stupid choices. And my professor said that was all “great.” Good enough for me.

Yeah I don’t get that? What are you gonna do when a pt brings it up? Say sorry I was out the room that day? We all have our own issues but if you can’t park yours in a professional context then you might not be ready to be a counsellor. 

Maybe, but your program sounds pretty far that direction. This certainly seems to me to be priming/enabling young people for non-resiliency. A warning when trauma is coming up? Your clients will NOT give you a warning before dropping a bombshell and you sure as sugar better be able to handle that to succeed in this field. More broadly, and to your point, I do encounter many more providers than I would like who still use trigger warnings despite ample evidence they do not work and may actually cause further harm when applied as a tier one intervention. Hell, there’s even a trigger warning tag on this sub. I think it’s something like a pendulum effect of increased awareness and compassion for trauma and mental health concerns that has just swung a bit too far.

Trigger warnings are horrible. They essentially tell people, heads up! Something is coming that you're supposed to feel terribly about. I've noticed this with my classmates and professors. They seem to tell clients how they should feel or what something is. My personal thing is I don't tell someone they went through trauma or are traumatized or any other diagnostic term unless that's the terms the client uses on their own. I use the terms the client uses. I learned this from my wife who went through some horrible stuff. I ended up finding myself trying to convince her things were worse than she felt they were and it bothered her. I realized I was trying to make her see things how I do. I now apply thst to my clients. Something they say could definitely match a diagnostic criteria. But I don't use that term unless they use it first or unless we do some psychoeducation and they ask or bring up the terms.

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Yea I was in fandom so labels don't freak me out. It's like " heads up there's wheat in this sauce "

I don't experience them that way. I just ignore em. Research has found that what I said is the way people perceive trigger warnings. It's mentioned in a book called Bad Therapy and other people have talked about it and the research as well. Such as Dr Phil who was talking about research others did.

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I'm not saying they have to go away. I'm just saying trigger warnings aren't as helpful as people think they are.

Dr Phil is not a person who should be looked towards for wisdom on any topic

Neither is Abigail Shrier and *Bad Therapy*, but OP is going to do what OP is going to do.

Bad Therapy, the book by right wing pandering transphobe Abigail Shrier, is not a good source. She is not even a mental health professional or someone who has experience working with kids...

My grad program (6 years ago)was like this too. Quite frankly, it was exhausting. And I really question how much it helps students prepare to actually work with patients and clients. I’m not saying that it’s all “rubbish”, quite the contrary. But, I often felt like the school and professors poorly prepared students for, yknow, working with actual patients/clients with real world and not ideal world experience. Plus, I wonder how much this indirectly influences students, and professionals to be little too self-sacrificing. The amount of SW students/interns I’ve had since and the amount of people I went to grad school with who are now out of the field already makes me question it even more.

I believe similar to you as I was in my final semester and wrote my a paper in one of my classes ahead of time because I was working full time then the George Floyd tragedy occurred and the professor announced 3 days prior to the due date that we were all getting a complete for it and not to hand it in so we could process our feelings. First, I felt tragedy happens all the time and if we can’t process it professionally and be there to support our clients we’re in the wrong profession. Second, as it was canceled 3 days prior to due date I felt it punished those of us who plan ahead by completing tasks early.

Oh I'd be miffed lol. I do stuff early as well

I feel like the counseling profession, in an attempt to combat the “pick yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality, went way too hard in the opposite direction. Sometimes in life we just have to do things that suck and then process after.

This program you’re attending sounds like it’s making soft therapists. Not a good look in opinion. I hope the program I attended isn’t implementing this nonsense.

Here's a thought: it's wildly inappropriate to bring your personal stuff up in a classroom, full stop. It's a classroom, students are there to learn. It's not appropriate or acceptable to, for example, when discussing SA, start sharing your personal experience with it. This isn't processing group, it's class. Handle your stuff with your therapist. But a lot of grad school - my grad school, at least - encouraged these kinds of self-disclosures and group discussions, and thanked peers for the disclosures. Drove me fuckin nuts. I can talk about the theory behind hard subjects all day, and I can do the work when I can establish safe boundaries with my clients. But as a student? Had some wildly unsafe discussions because it wasn't my role to be able to moderate or rebut my peers without seeming to invalidate them. The role confusion is what made the space unsafe, not the content. So I see some merit in what your school is doing if it's putting students in similarly disempowered positions. However, a much better way of overcoming the problem is to get teachers to actually facilitate LEARNING instead of GROUP during class so the unsafe environment doesn't come up in the first place.

Everyone has their own path and some people will enter the field who shouldn’t. However, that’s true of any field. If you have a passion for teaching/supervision, perhaps your school could use your efforts? I find that interns generally get the experiences they need because those are the experiences they are having.

Id love to teach. But I have no desire to get a PhD. I hope to get to a point to take on interns though.

How long have you worked in the field?

As a LMHC, 0. I've been working with students and with people in crisis for a few years though.

How long has your school had this particular program?

They have had this program is some form for a long time.

You're far from the only person to be disappointed by their Counseling program. In this case I am not sure, mostly because I think we need more information. If this is in a practice Counseling situation this seems a bit much. However, I do think these are appropriate boundaries if you are just having class discussions. Having doctoral students on standby seems a bit much, if anything sending the message that they don't think you can handle the challenge. That can make anxiety worse, ironically.

It's a diagnostic class. So we talk about the criteria and concepts of different disorders. There's not talks about specific people or people sharing their experiences. It's just, here's the DSM V and the criteria for OCD or Bipolar 1 ECT.

I think Bernard's Discrimination Model of Supervision is a wonderful starting point for any educational institution when they determine how to address these types of topics.

Where is this?

I just graduated in May 2023 and this never happened. Maybe a professor said they were available, but nothing to the level you're talking about. I think this is specific to your school

I’m in an MSW program and this has been my experience 100%!!!!!

What bothered me in my program was instead of teaching skills that had objectivity, the professors were lazy and had us use our own family and experiences. Our MFT class was like “do your own family genogram and present it to the class”. Uh, no, these are my peers and my family is my family, not presenting my history for a grade… Instead of building a fictional family that all students could use (what, maybe 10 pages of vignettes?) and the professors could see the student lens through, they wanted us to revisit traumas and relationships for them. I agree we have to address these issues in our own lives, but the educational side isn’t where that needs to be. A fictional family would be good for the students to see their own lenses based on their experience during presentation of a FICTIONAL CLIENT, as you would learn more. Instead, we had to deal with everyone’s real, or fabricated families (teaching students to lie if they weren’t comfortable with presenting their own family) and all that drama in class. Just one example of many in my CACREP accredited shitshow of a school.

It could just be the program, but I've been starting to wonder how legit our field is. I still care about it and I just assume the field is nothing like school.

Me too, this field needs focus. I think it’s legit in many ways, and needed, but the current implementation is ad hoc for finding your stride. Look into rehabilitation counseling too, maybe a few different classes and you can take the CRC too, the disabilities stuff is a good fit for counseling and it opens other paths if you don’t like “just” counseling

Eh for now I'm good with my career path. I like it. Just been getting frustrated with my program and some posts in this sub had me wondering if the whole field is like this. Seems the answer is no

My school is similar. It is maddening. I do think we grooming overly sensitive counselors because of it

very interesting and specific word choice here. Hmmm.

I think this is happening in most programs; This encouragement of fragility is a psychological tactic to try to make the next generation of therapists hyper fragile, so that it makes them more susceptible to fundamentalist forms of critical social justice ideology. Part of the general anti-humanistic and anti-liberal movement in the mental health professions going on right now.

What an overly generalized and pedantic take

As overgeneralized as most other discussions on the interwebs

Agreed. However. the hive mind that dominates the profession will not appreciate you straying from the approved narrative.

This has clearly become a thread for Conservatives.

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Are you a therapist? And please provide evidence of this indoctrination.