Helping Counselor Trainees Overcome Barriers to Seeking Help

Despite the perception that counseling can be helpful to counselor trainees for both personal and professional reasons, few empirical studies have been conducted on their help-seeking attitudes and behaviors. This article discusses possible barriers to trainees' use of counseling and offers counselor educators recommendations for promoting the use of counseling services. ********** The process of seeking the services of a professional helper lies at the heart of the counseling profession. In general terms, help seeking can be seen as seeking assistance from anyone, including friends, family members, clergy members, and mental health professionals (Hinson & Swanson, 1993). Among those individuals seeking mental health assistance, one may find counselors themselves, who work in a profession which their own mental well-being is of primary importance. In regard to their personal lives, Gladding (2000) wrote, "Persons who become counselors experience the same difficulties as everyone else," and a "critical issue is how counselors handle these life events" (p. 33). As professional helpers, counselors have an obligation to model self-care behaviors, which include maintaining their own mental, physical, and spiritual wellness and, when necessary, seeking help from others. The values of help seeking and self-care also extend to trainees learning to become professional counselors. During graduate studies, stressors of various types can arise: academic, emotional, financial, relational, and time management related. At the same time, during their practicums and internships, trainees are charged not only with counseling their clients but also with serving as models of wellness. In addition, many counseling programs may encourage their trainees to engage in counseling as a way to increase self-awareness. In Standard F.8.b., the ACA Code of Ethics (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2005) also states that trainees must be alert to signs of impairment and seek professional help if warranted. The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) also recognizes the importance of counseling access for trainees, given that a section of its application relates to the availability of personal counseling for them (CACREP, 2001). All in all, the accumulated demands of graduate training can take a toll on the emotional and mental well-being of trainees, and the pursuit of counseling may be beneficial. Yet, in pursuing personal counseling, trainees may be faced with obstacles that discourage or prevent them from using the very product that they are studying. The focus of this article is on voluntary counseling for trainees. This topic is related to, although considered distinct from, both required counseling, an area that has been discussed in the literature and at professional conferences (D'Andrea & Daniels, 1992; Downs, 2000; Matthews & Sheets, 2005), and the mental health status of counselor trainees (de Vries & Valadez, 2005). The problem, succinctly stated, is that surprisingly few studies have examined trainees' voluntary help seeking and associated difficulties they may experience in seeking counseling. Consequently, little is known about the barriers that impede participation in personal counseling and whether such participation enhances their effectiveness as mental health professionals. The primary purposes of this article are as follows: (a) to discuss the existing literature on help-seeking behaviors among trainees, (b) to outline potential barriers to trainee help seeking, and (c) to offer recommendations for helping trainees deal with such barriers. As counseling helps clients to develop their strengths, counselor education programs also strive to help "students believe in themselves and their potential" (Association for Humanistic Education and Development, 1982, p. 3), one of the tenets of humanistic education. I hope that as a result of this article, counselor educators will become more sensitive to potential barriers encountered by trainees in seeking help and take steps to facilitate their help-seeking process. …