How to have a Successful Internship in Counseling

Russ Curtis, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (LCMHC) is a professor of counseling at Western Carolina University. Prior to becoming a counselor educator, Russ worked in a clinical mental health center where he coordinated with medical providers to ensure optimal care for at-risk clients with co-morbid mental and physical illnesses. Dr. Curtis’s co-edited textbook, Integrated Care: Applying Theory to Practice (Curtis & Christian, 2012) was selected by The Council on Social Work Education in collaboration with SAMHSA as one of two recommended textbooks for training behavioral health professionals. He has produced two commercial counseling instructional videos, one of which, Positive Psychotherapy: Helping People Thrive (Curtis & Goetz, 2013) was selected as an Editor’s Choice by Microtraining Incorporated. For the past 20 years, Russ has taught and supervised both school and clinical counselors at WCU, and has researched and published in areas related to Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports in schools, treating adolescent anxiety, and increasing growth mindset in students.

[AG-mfdd]

Hi Russ, I am so grateful to find your channel. A counselling student struggling in placement and questioning everything

[thevisualstoryteller]

Great advice. I am about to start my practicum in about 4 weeks so some great things to think about and apply as I begin my field experience. Excited and nervous at the same time. I have wanted to do this for so many years just never got the degree. Nervous because I want to be perfect and do the best for the client but at the same time I have to remember that this is a learning experience for me. I am not supposed to be perfect and know everything. I just do not want to make a mistake and hinder a client's progress or potential progress.

[BlueskyDenver]

I have still a couple of months before I start, but it’s not the actual work with clients that worries me. I’m more terrified that I will have to stop working entirely and take an additional loan in order to be able to complete my internship. No way will my employer accommodate my academic pursuits. I’m already having difficulties with them, , because they want to schedule me to work late hours, which conflict with my academics. I already told them when they hired me that I am in the last portion of my graduate degree, and the person that hired me said it wasn’t a problem, but the owner of the company is been very difficult. I really wish I don’t have to work through graduate school because it’s hard enough being a student in a graduate program, and it’s very hard when you have to deal with employers and work scheduling and other things like that. Not to mention that you don’t have as much study time at times because you are working so much, so my weekends are full of studying and reading. Will see how it goes.

[franc]

thank you v much for keep sharing!! via an upcoming psych undergrad.

[connorm]

You seem like a cool Prof Russ! Thanks for the video

[rareBearmusic]

Suppose you are one of those children, and after a nervous breakdown possibly largely induced by a potentially narcissistic mother (let’s just assume this is a valid possibility) and the isolation from family who she just moved close to, and you lost everything, dropped out of school as an honors junior with a 4.0, and ended up homeless, shown no compassion and villainized, and eventually ended up in the hospital, and suddenly the mother cared and convinced you to “come home.” Just hypothetical here.

In your crippled state you discover your mother in fact will still deny even the slightest thing that could validate a feeling that could shed poor light on her. Slight admissions at best BUT, always a BUT, followed by justification for whatever the thing she did or said was ok. Knowing that this denial has literally destroyed her son’s ability to trust his reality and elements of his ability to support himself, she cannot admit fault. She also had demonstrated proficiency in every category on the wheel.

What do you do with that. It’s your mother and you love her. She does reciprocate that love a lot when she is not on real or perceived defense. But there is no denying the toxicity.


Do you try to help her see? Do you try to help her understand what she does knowing if she were to admit it this would cause her great mental anguish?