ABSTRACT
Counselor educators and supervisors play a significant role in the training of future mental healthcare professionals. It is a privilege to meet, teach, supervise, and mentor these uniquely gifted students; an honor to become part of their life stories. In this role, I have an opportunity to witness and participate in the refinement of the natural talents and encourage the passionate goals of students, the chance to contribute to the need in our society for trained and caring counselors. The role of counselor educator and supervisor is also a difficult role, one that operates in the tension between building competence and a sense of self-efficacy in the next generation of counselors and the ethical mandate that counselor educators and supervisors have to serve as gatekeepers for the profession.
