Clients’ Experiences in Counselling Sessions with Counsellor Trainees

This qualitative study aims to explore the experiences of clients who are undergoing counselling sessions with counsellor trainees who are completing an internship. The counsellor trainees are in their final semester of counselling training, and they are required to perform the internship for a duration of 24 weeks and fulfil a required number of hours of counselling sessions with clients. The clients who engaged in the counselling sessions with counsellor trainees during the internship were selected as research participants. Data were gathered through interviews, and these interviews were carried out after the counsellor trainees completed their internship. A total of 17 clients who had been through counselling sessions with the counsellor trainees were involved in the interviews. The clients, or the research participants, were located at different counselling centres. The findings indicate that clients’ experiences in counselling sessions included three themes- the clients’ views of counsellor trainees, the clients’ views of themselves during counselling sessions and the clients’ views about the counselling process. In addition, the skills and personal characteristics of effective counsellor trainees were a major contributor to the growth experienced by the clients as a result of the counselling sessions. The implication of the findings, personal characteristics and counselling skills of counsellor trainees should be developed through training programme.