We heavily invest in training the next generation of behavioral health professionals. An emerging study from Barry University raises a question we seldom consider: what about the individuals who provide the training?
Emerging research: This study is currently in progress. CFBH is featuring it here as part of our commitment to surfacing research that matters — including work that is still finding its answers.
Anna Rondon, M.S., LMHC — Ph.D. Candidate, Barry UniversityDepartment of Counseling & School Psychology · Supervised by Dr. Heidi Whitford · February 2025
Every behavioral health professional possesses a narrative regarding an individual who has significantly influenced their approach to their work. This may involve a supervisor who exemplified commendable qualities, a mentor who facilitated the articulation of previously unexpressed concepts, or a transformative classroom experience that reshaped their understanding of their role.These influential figures—educators and supervisors—are also tasked with developing their own professional identity. Emerging research indicates that this process is both inadequately studied and profoundly important.The gap in the researchWhile professional identity development within the counseling field has been investigated from various perspectives—including those of counselors-in-training, doctoral students, and clinical practitioners—the literature has predominantly overlooked the counselor educator. This category encompasses faculty members, clinical supervisors, and academic mentors, all of whom occupy a uniquely complex position at the intersection of practical experience, pedagogy, and professional community.
Professional identity development is characterized as the effective integration of personal characteristics and professional training within the framework of a professional community. This process includes both intrapersonal elements, such as the internalization of knowledge and the recognition of individual strengths, and interpersonal activities, including publishing, presenting, teaching, and mentoring. The existing literature on this subject, particularly regarding counselor educators, is notably limited, underscoring the importance of closely observing this study.
A narrative inquiry study currently in progress at Barry University is directly addressing this significant gap. Researcher Anna Rondon, a doctoral candidate specializing in counseling with a focus on couples and family therapy, is employing semi-structured interviews and photo-elicitation techniques to investigate how counselor educators perceive and articulate their professional identity development. This study also examines how such development influences their teaching methodologies, supervision practices, and overall professional growth.The importance of professional identity for educators cannot be overstated. The essence of how a counselor educator perceives their professional self is not a mere abstraction. Research across related fields—such as education, psychoanalysis, and psychology—consistently demonstrates that professional identity serves as the internal compass from which practitioners make critical decisions, confront challenges, and evolve within their roles.For counselor educators, this professional identity is particularly complex. They embody multiple roles, including those of clinician, researcher, teacher, supervisor, and advocate. They are expected to exemplify the values they impart while navigating the administrative demands inherent in academic settings. Additionally, they serve as mentors to students who are themselves in the process of professional development, indicating that their own understanding of professional identity directly impacts the next generation of practitioners.
From the researchThe Minnesota Study of Therapist and Counselor Development — a landmark longitudinal study spanning 172 interviews with 100 practitioners — identified distinct developmental phases across a professional career, from the Novice Student Phase through the Senior Professional Phase.Key features of that development include periods of heightened self-doubt, a heavy reliance on socialization and learning environments, and moments of disillusionment when the self and the perceived expectations of one's role fail to align. These are not signs of failure. They are the process.
What Rondon's study adds is a focus on the educator's experience of that process — not just the student's. The methodology is deliberately personal: narrative inquiry invites participants to tell their own stories, and photo elicitation asks them to bring an image that represents their development of professional identity. The data that emerges is qualitative, contextual, and human.What the field is beginning to askThe counseling profession has invested significantly in defining itself — through accreditation standards, licensure frameworks, and professional organizations working toward unity in scope and identity. What this emerging research points toward is a next layer of that investment: understanding how the people responsible for transmitting professional identity to others are developing their own.That question has implications beyond academia. Counselor educators are a critical link in the behavioral health workforce pipeline. How they understand their role, navigate their development, and integrate personal and professional identity into their teaching has real consequences for the quality and character of the practitioners they train — and ultimately for the communities those practitioners serve.Food for thoughtThis study is still gathering its answers. But the questions it asks are worth sitting with — especially for anyone who works in, trains for, or depends on the behavioral health field.What does it mean to know who you are as a professional — not just what you do, but what you stand for and why? How does that sense of self evolve across a career? And what happens to the people we train when the person doing the training hasn't had the space to answer those questions themselves?We will return to this research as findings emerge. In the meantime — if you are a counselor educator, a practitioner, or a student in the field — we'd invite you to consider your own answer.
Sources
Gibson et al. (2010). Professional identity development in counselor education.
Skovholt, T.M. & Rønnestad, M.H. (1992/1995). The Evolving Professional Self. John Wiley & Sons.
Clandinin, D.J. & Connelly, F.M. (2000). Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. Jossey-Bass.
Kaplan, D.M. & Gladding, S.T. (2011). A vision for the future of counseling. Journal of Counseling & Development, 89, 367–372.
About this studyRondon, A. (2025). Counseling Educators' Perception of Professional Identity Development: A Narrative Inquiry. Department of Counseling, Barry University. Supervised by Dr. Heidi Whitford. Sponsored by the Department of Counseling and School Psychology.
