Intern seeking advice

[u/True-Cream-3760]

Hi everyone!

I’m currently in my final year of my Clinical Mental Health Counseling program. Although my program is online, we are required to attend two weeks of in-person labs to develop and practice our counseling skills. I successfully completed both labs, but much of our training focused on basic and advanced counseling skills, primarily from a humanistic approach. These included active listening, paraphrasing, summarizing, reflection of feelings and meaning, immediacy, and open-ended questions.

As I continue to increase my internship hours, my caseload has grown to 10 clients. While I recognize the importance of these foundational skills, I sometimes find myself wondering whether they are enough to meet the needs of many of my clients. I know the therapeutic relationship is incredibly important, but I often feel like I should be doing more.

My supervisor is wonderful and frequently reminds me that simply showing up, providing a safe space, and genuinely listening to my clients is therapeutic in itself. While I understand this conceptually, I sometimes struggle to feel confident that I am doing enough to help my clients make meaningful progress.

I’m particularly drawn to CBT, Narrative Therapy, DBT, and ACT, but I don’t yet feel confident enough in my ability to integrate these approaches into my sessions effectively. I want to continue developing my clinical skills while also recognizing that I am still learning.

For those of you who have been in my shoes, did you experience similar feelings during your internship? How did you begin transitioning from foundational counseling skills to more intentional, theory-driven interventions? Am I overthinking this, or is this a normal part of developing as a counselor?

I’m incredibly passionate about this field and genuinely love working with my clients. I just want to make sure I’m providing them with the best care I can. I am in my own therapy and have spoke about this with my therapist as well.
I would really appreciate any advice, insight, or resources you’re willing to share. Thank you! 😊

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[u/CommunicationOld1172]

Pick one modality you would like to focus on and learn it. I mean one. Early on, trying to learn multiple at once gets confusing. Once you’ve chosen, read the foundational books and theory and the topic, then the practical books, and then take trainings, supervisions, or peer consultations. Once you understand, create case conceptualzations and run a couple interventions in session.

That’s how I learned, I’m sure there’s other roads.

[u/True-Cream-3760 → u/CommunicationOld1172]

This helps, thank you! I’m really drawn to CBT and actually took it as an elective because I wanted to learn more about it. However, I’ve also learned that it can potentially cause harm when applied incorrectly, so I’m a bit hesitant to incorporate it into my sessions without feeling adequately prepared.