ABSTRACT
For me, becoming a counselling trainer was serendipitous. At the time I was asked to be the third facilitator on a recently established Foundation Course in Counselling Skills, I was already practising as a counsellor, but had not contemplated becoming a trainer. Nothing could have prepared me for what was to come, neither the rewards nor the complex challenges. My novice years were terrifying and yet, at the same time, magically transforming. I applied for the M.Sc. in Counselling Supervision and Training at the University of Bristol in 1992 in order to create a context for myself in which I could reflect on and learn more about the training process. My research project arose out of my curiosity to discover and uncover how students change during counselling training. It will already be apparent that while I was busily engaged in exploring changes in my students’ lives, I was seeking some way of explaining my own transformation: hence the title that emerged for my study was ‘The Parallel Journey’ (Levy 1994).
