Personal growth, increased self-awareness, and inter and intrapersonal maturation have long been seen as important training dimensions for those involved in counselling. The current study aimed to build on existing knowledge in this area through use of empirically validated measures of three well-described developmentally-orientated psychological constructs Bowen’s Differentiation of Self (DoS), Batson’s Religious Quest (Quest) and Perry’s Epistemological Development (ED) to evaluate the effectiveness of the training programs in facilitating the interpersonal, intrapersonal, spiritual and epistemological maturation of counselling students.
Eighty counselling students participated in a study looking at the length of time they had been counselling students and the number of counselling-related subjects they had completed. Results indicated that both the length of time spent studying counselling and number of counselling units undertaken, were significantly predictive of levels of Quest, ED, and two component dimensions of DoS (i.e., emotional reactivity and fusion with others). These results will be discussed in terms of their implications for counselling training and practice, and future research directions.