Doing a Doc! – The thoughts, experiences and relationships of students undertaking a Professional Doctorate in Counselling

Abstract

Aim: To explore the experiences of students undertaking a Professional Doctorate in Counselling. Method: The participants, students from years 1–6 on a Professional Doctorate programme within a UK university, were interviewed and the transcripts analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Themes identified include Personal Development, Expectations, Passion and Voice. However there is an overarching theme for these students' experiences of a ‘therapeutic edge’, which appears specific to them. Discussion: It seems clear that students undertaking this course of study will be challenged in a number of ways, as is also evidenced in the literature available. Conclusion: Students embarking on a Professional Doctorate in Counselling course may benefit from an understanding of the potential challenges they could face apart from the academic ones they perhaps anticipate. Such awareness might encourage them to identify good support systems to access throughout their studies.

Keywords:

• personal development
• Professional Doctorate
• thematic analysis
• therapeutic edge
• voice

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all of the students who were willing to participate in this research. I would also like to thank my supervisor Dr William West for his encouragement to write this work up as a paper. Thanks are also due to the BBC who gave me permission to use the terms Dr Who and ‘Tardis’ as a metaphor in academic work.

Notes

1. Dr Who is a popular British science fiction television programme. The Doctor is a traveller in time and space and usually has at least one human companion travelling with him. His ‘time machine’ is an innocuous looking blue police telephone box (common in the UK in the 1960s when the programme was first broadcast). Although small to look at, it is cavernous inside, a situation that tends to awe the companions the first time they step enter. It is known as the TARDIS, an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.