ABSTRACT
We start as new counselors, ready to help all those individuals and families that come into our office. We are trained, supervised, graduated, and ready to go. However, the beginning of our counseling careers are often not so easy during those first steps. Take, for example, a new counselor who has been working out of a cognitive behavioral framework since graduate school. This framework will probably work with many clients, but, chances are, the counselor will begin seeing the limitation of this framework when confronted with other types of clients. Seeing this limitation, the counselor may continue trying to assimilate all of his or her clients into the cognitive developmental framework, or, after experiencing a feeling of disequilibrium after failing in this effort, may have to accommodate and expand his or her skill repertoire as well as perception that all clients can be effectively helped from a cognitive behavioral framework. Now this counselor has come to a significant point in his or her professional development. He or she can hold fast with what he or she believes about the adopted theoretical orientation, or consider moving into uncharted theoretical territory that may appear dangerous and confusing. After finally gaining some level of confidence and settling in to his or her work, this new counselor is being challenged with moving in a different direction that is unknown. One way to take care of this is to staff the situation with the supervisor. Surely, he or she will be able to provide guidance and direction on this issue.
