Is The Personal Theoretical? A Critical Incident Analysis of Student Theory Journals

Abstract

Journal entries from 23 masters students enrolled in a counseling theories course were analyzed using Critical Incident methodology to identify students' self-disclosures and connection to counseling theories. Seven different patterns of connecting theoretical information to personal experiences emerged. The authors present a discussion of how the findings and resulting framework can contribute to the teaching of counseling theory and the reflective process of identifying theoretical orientation.

User rating on eligibility of the KIPAS Model counseling steps

“…It is based on the orientation of the counselor-counselee interaction functions, such as affection or feeling, thought, action, or their combination. KIPAS is a counseling model based on Personal Counseling Theory (Mobley & Gazda, 2007) or Personal Theory (Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2018), with a possibility for further exploration (Hrovat & Luke, 2016). Furthermore, KIPAS is eclectic-joyous, more or less concerned with happy eclecticism (Sprinthall et al, 2001), with its main characteristic being the joy of the subjects in teamwork.…”

A Call for Radical Reflexivity in Counseling Qualitative Research

“…Despite the increase in the use of qualitative methodologies in counseling and counselor education (Bernard & Luke, 2015), there remains a need for additional literature that explores the intersection of epistemological, ontological, and theoretical aspects underpinning the methodologies (Goodrich & Luke, 2019;Hrovat & Luke, 2016). We recommend that counselor educators incorporate activities to promote radical reflexivity early in training, modeling experiential opportunities to scaffold students' reflexivity.…”

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“…A critical incident is an experience, in other words, the moment that has caused change due to the importance or critical thinking placed on the event (Tripp, 2012). Critical incidents are a useful tool in research and have been utilised in education and health research either as forward focused learning opportunities (Attrill et al, 2019;Hrovat & Luke, 2016) or reflective focused moments of learning (Bolton, 2016;Nejadghanbar, 2021;Wijaya & Kuswandono, 2019). In this article the critical incidents are defined as critical when I was reflecting on what I have learnt in the Learning Agreement, making them significant in hindsight rather than at that time.…”