When the editor of Counseling Today magazine asks you to contribute to a new section of the magazine, to help you overcome imposter syndrome as a pre-licensed counselor, you *don’t* tell her everything you think is wrong with the publication from a new professional’s perspective.

Unless you’re me. And you don’t know that you’re speaking to the Editor of Counseling Today magazine on a call with the Graduate and New Professionals Committee of the American Counseling Association. Then you *do* tell her about how pulling the publication out of my post office box felt like I was receiving marketing materials for a profession that perceives me as unqualified to be in it given my status as a pre-pre-licensed, resident counselor.

(Eeeeek – sorry Lindsey Phillips) 

Spoiler alert: the magazine has been re-imagined and you’re going to want to read it every single issue especially if you’re looking to belong in a profession that will cultivate your competence and invite you to contribute to it for future generations of clients and counselors. (Thank you, Lindsey Phillips.)

It was only after our Zoom call when I was invited to contribute to a new section called Career Consultation, where new counselors ask questions to established counselors who provide their insight on the developmental experience of emerging in the field, that I, stunned by my own audacity, set my coffee down next to my laptop and opened the door to process my mortification with the therapist across the hall from my office.

Why do I never stop talking? I asked her from my wheely office chair, my arm outstretched holding the door open so she could see just how far my own jaw had dropped to the floor. The question was obviously rhetorical but she answered anyway.

“Maybe it was helpful for her to hear what you had to say.”

And she was right.

As developing counselors we haven’t yet gotten burned out, demoralized, or systemically exploited by the healthcare economy. If we have seen the system fail clients marginalized by the system and in the culture that created the system, we haven’t yet felt exhausted by the kind of endurance required to see change through. 

(The kind of change that ACA is so well positioned to strategically impact if you’re willing to get involved. Think: most recently: Medicare coverage for counselors and the Counseling Compact which is now approved by # of states).

It’s not that we’re naive (though we might be mislabeled this), it’s that we have a more intimate relationship with our belief in the future than we do our exhaustion in the present (exhaustion which is a normal human response to an exploitive healthcare economy).

As a result, we can be so inherently curious, open-minded, and dedicated to exploring new ideas in interdisciplinary conversations about our clients and what they need as well as opportunities to create change in the field toward the liberation of all.

But as developing counselors we can be so inherently disempowered.

Or at least it can feel that way. 

We are cautioned against the legal implications of misrepresenting our expertise and end of up with email signatures and website disclaimers that read like novellas, ensuring we contextualize our practice as a counselor in training.

And, of course, we are ethically bound to ensure we receive adequate supervision (as we should be) such that our decision-making can be guided by (when done well) by our supervisors who both understand our clinical orientation while scaffolding gaps in case conceptualization or ethical decision making.

Before I go on to offer the 3 ways to overcome imposter syndrome as a pre-licensed counselor, I want to offer the disclaimer that this hierarchy is one I deeply believe in. I think it is essential to our emerging into our authority.

But, paradoxically it can also have the unintended consequence of subverting our authority (if we let it) such that instead of operating from a position of conviction in a structure that scaffolds our support, we instead operate from a position of deference that leads to self-doubt.

Remember? Before I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I asked my colleague: Why do I never stop talking? As if stopping talking would have been the goal in pursuit of my professional development and my contribution to it.

As if when I speak from a position of conviction I am speaking out of turn.

Rather than validating the unique strengths we possess in our developmental moment (while honoring our unique needs in our supervisory relationships), we pursue a capacity in the developmental trajectory we don’t yet have and feel inadequate with those we uniquely possess in the one we are in now.

In honor of the article featuring myself, in conversation with my colleague @LauraSmested, on this subject, I am sharing 3 ways to overcome imposter syndrome as a pre-licensed counselor with these perspectives (read, in counselor-speak: re-frames) to claim your authority. My goal is to ensure you continue contributing to necessary conversations with the conviction that the point of view you represent at this moment in your development as an emerging counselor is essential to the advancement of our profession?

Ready to shift your perspective with me? Let’s go!

1. No one else has the call to the counseling profession – and therefore the capacity for impact – that you do.

I want you to think about what led you into this profession in the first place.

For me, it was the realization that the thing I wanted to do most in life was sit in the two chairs in my grandmother’s living room, talking to her about her sadness and her joy; her childhood and her loses — her loneliness.

That is, what I most wanted to do was witness others in their humanity and help them find peace through the radical act of intentional listening. 

What is it for you? Go ahead: for real. Give it a good think.

(Got it?)

This is the coolest thing about you. It’s your superpower. It’s the thing that is making you a superhero in this profession. Notice I didn’t say ‘will’ because this is a present-tense reality.

And the coolest thing about it is that you don’t have to achieve it. It’s inherent in your call to counsel. It’s something you already possess.

It pre-existed your admission to the degree-granting institution that appointed you with the right to do this work.

And it’s what empowers you to contribute to it.

As we move through the steps that qualify us in the counseling profession, it can feel as if we are acquiring the knowledge that already exists about the human condition.

We can forget that we are contributing knowledge about the human experience, at the intersection of what we know about our own, and learn about how to articulate it through the evidence-based practices – and the research methods used to develop them – that standardize our profession.

2. The only way future-you can solve problems in the counseling profession, is if current pre-licensed you is bold enough to ask questions now.

It’s not a matter of if you’re going to make an impact in this field it’s when, and more importantly how.

I think as developing counselors, we become hyper-focused on the when. When will I be licensed? When can I use the word ‘counselor’ to describe myself? When will I get those letters after my name?

That ‘when’ will happen. It’s a matter of passing the necessary exams, completing the required number of hours, and moving through the process of developing the competencies that make it appropriate for you to be designated with the credential.

It might happen in the minimum number of hours required by your state or in the developmental timeline that is appropriate for you between motherhood, caregiving, and all of our other occupations in this life. But it will happen.

I urge that the more important question to ask is how.

If we shift our focus to the question of how we become less fixated on a timeline and more invested in a process.

That process is the process of how exactly will we refine the questions we need to ask ourselves about our professional interests. What population do we most want to serve? What clinical settings will provide us with the opportunity to encounter this population? What clinical interests reflect the intersecting issues that inform the experiences of this population and therefore, also, their needs?

That brings me to the second of these 3 ways to overcome imposter syndrome as a pre-licensed counselor. Remind yourself of this:

The only way future, appointed-with-authority you can make an impact is if current, developing-in-her-competencies you is bold enough to confront the questions that need to be asked to lead you to the solutions you will contribute to bringing to fruition.

It’s not a matter of if it’s a matter of how. If is something you have to wait for.  But how is something you can do something about now.

3. You have unique ideas to contribute about the work of counseling and a responsibility to cultivate them now, pre-licensed or not.

As developing counselors we are still establishing the authority that comes through structured trainings.

But what we can do now is validate the lens through which we see the world (importantly, cultivating this self-awareness is essential to practicing from an anti-oppressive lens), develop fluency in articulating it, and recognize when this lends itself to quick case conceptualization or problem-solving in interdisciplinary care environments.

So often it can feel like our opinions get trumped by others who have a greater ability to recall diagnostic criteria, identify differential diagnoses as if it is second nature, and identify well-learned facts about the clinical presentation in question.

And while meaningful clinical work requires all of those things (and certainly counselors with those abilities can enhance any conversation), it also requires new ways of thinking.

It requires understanding the client’s cultural context. It requires acknowledging implicit bias. It requires considering alternative perspectives.

All of that is something you bring to the table now.

And maybe, you have an advantage in doing so because you are so new to the profession.

Gentle Reminder: Imposter Syndrome is a Feeling, Not a Fact

So there you have it. 3 ways to overcome imposter syndrome as a pre-licensed counselor.

It really is as straightforward as that. 😉✨

Simple? Maybe it’s not a simple thing to take action on. But it is straightforward.

No one else has the call to counsel that you have. And as a result, no one (and I mean no one) can contribute the ideas that only you will develop because of the lens through which you see the world.

When we focus on the standardized achievements – the trainings, and the certifications (all of which are extremely important) – we forget that what makes those things meaningful is how we integrate and apply them.

Our expertise emerges from the intersection between the competencies we develop through our strategically selected trainings and the way we integrate these domains of knowledge, as they are applied by our unique capacity for insight – one that is informed by our lived experiences, not our clinical expertise.

Are you ready to put this into action? You can begin transforming your self-doubt into your professional mission statement using my free Future Self Journal Guide linked here and read the article in Counseling Today here.

Grab your free journal guide now, and tell me below: what’s your biggest challenge in offering your perspective in professional settings as a new counselor in your current setting? Seriously! I want to hear from you in the comments and so look forward to the continuing conversation.

Let’s de-stigmatize imposter syndrome and normalize speaking with conviction at every phase of counselor development.

Comment your reflections below.