My Journey From Black and White to Grey: A Student Counsellor's Perspective on Training in Post-modernism Following a Career Working within a Modernist Model†

Abstract

The discovery of one's professional and personal epistemology is a crucial component of reflexive practice. The following autoethnography focuses on the development of the author's personal epistemology while completing a three-year Master of Counselling degree. Having worked within the medical model for a decade, the author struggled with choosing between modernism and post-modernism as a personal epistemology while practicing in a counselling and family therapy clinic that privileged post-structural and social constructionist epistemologies. This paper examines that struggle. Data were drawn from journal entries documenting reflections, conversations with supervisors and student colleagues, vignettes from sessions, and current research into the development of epistemological positions. Ultimately, the author concludes that it is not modernism versus post-modernism, but rather the two epistemologies, shaped by personal and professional experiences, that work together to facilitate intentional practice. The importance of examining a personal epistemology has implications for students, educators, supervisors, and practicing professionals.