The lived experiences of counselors-in-training developing a theoretical orientation.

Throughout a counseling graduate program, a student’s theoretical orientation is a topic of high priority. As counselor educators, we know why this development of theoretical orientation is important, we have not explored counseling students’ perspective on this process. A phenomenological approach was used to conduct an exploratory study concerning the development of a theoretical orientation of counseling students in a Southeastern university in Texas. Twenty-three students were surveyed, and six themes were identified concerning their development of a theoretical orientation: (a) program encouragement, (b) conflict during theoretical orientation development, (c) supervision and theoretical orientation, (d) defining moment, (e) ethics and theoretical orientation and, (f) outside work in development of theoretical orientation.