Professional and self-development among counselling trainees during practicum: A narrative review

Abstract

This narrative review synthesizes current knowledge on professional and self-development among counselling trainees during practicum, with emphasis on the mechanisms, facilitators, and barriers that shape professional identity, ethical competence, reflective capacity, and self-awareness. Practicum is widely recognised as a pivotal stage in counsellor education because it bridges classroom learning with supervised client work. Previous literature has established that supervision, reflective practice, experiential learning, and trainee wellbeing are central to trainees’ professional identity formation and personal growth. However, important issues remain unclear, including inconsistent definitions and measurement of “growth,” limited longitudinal evidence on developmental progression, and insufficient cross-cultural analysis of how supervisory relationships influence trainee development across different institutional settings. These gaps have become more significant as counsellor education now faces competency-based training expectations, multicultural and ethical demands, concerns about trainee wellbeing, and the expansion of telecounselling and hybrid practicum placements. Therefore, a narrative review is especially needed to integrate fragmented conceptual and empirical evidence, clarify key tensions in the literature, and guide future supervision and training practices. A comprehensive literature search was conducted across Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, ERIC, PubMed, and Google Scholar for English-language publications from 2000 to 2025. Additional sources were identified through reference list screening and relevant grey literature. From an initial pool of 1,052 records, 30 documents were included in the final narrative synthesis after duplicate removal, title and abstract screening, full-text eligibility assessment, and relevance appraisal. The selected documents were synthesized thematically according to study context, research design, developmental focus, supervisory factors, reflective practices, and key findings. The review identifies supervision, reflection, and experiential learning as key mechanisms that promote development. Nevertheless, trainees commonly experience anxiety, role confusion, emotional fatigue, and power imbalances. The findings also reveal tensions between supportive and evaluative supervision, individual autonomy and collectivist expectations, and competency-based assessment and holistic self-development. This review highlights the need for longitudinal, culturally inclusive, and mixed-method research, as well as stronger supervisory frameworks and reflective wellness practices in counsellor training.