This qualitative study seeks to explore how integrative counsellor trainees navigate and experience ambiguity during their training and clinical practice, illuminating both the challenges and developmental value of working with various forms of uncertainty in practice.
Ambiguity is widely recognised as an inherent feature of counselling and psychotherapy. Trainees often come across situations with multiple possible interpretations, such as in client meaning-making, risk assessment, relational dynamics, theoretical integration, and clinical decision-making. While ambiguity tolerance has been discussed in psychological literature since the mid-twentieth century, empirical research exploring trainees’ lived experience of ambiguity within training and early practice remains limited.
This study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how trainees make sense of, respond to, and potentially grow through encounters with different forms of uncertainty as part of their professional development. The study will use Reflexive Thematic Analysis, a qualitative approach to analysing interview data that involves identifying and interpreting patterns of meaning across participants’ accounts. The focus is not on evaluating competence or effectiveness, but on exploring how ambiguity is experienced emotionally, cognitively, relationally, ethically, and developmentally within therapeutic practice and training.
I am seeking to recruit approximately six integrative trainee counsellors or psychotherapists who have been in training for at least one year, or recent graduates who completed their training in 2025. Participants must have experience of working with clients as part of their training. Interested individuals will receive a participant information sheet outlining the study in full. Those who wish to proceed will be asked to complete an informed consent form prior to participation.
Data will be collected through recorded semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 60 minutes, conducted online via the Zoom platform. Interviews will explore participants’ experiences of the phenomenon in their training and clinical work, how they understand these experiences, and how they navigate them in practice. Participants will not be asked to disclose identifiable client or institutional information. All data will be treated confidentially. Audio recordings will be transcribed and anonymised, with pseudonyms used in place of identifying details. Contextual information will be carefully reviewed to minimise the risk of inadvertent identification. Data will be securely stored in accordance with university data protection guidelines.
This study has received ethical approval from Staffordshire University. If you would like to participate, please email me to express your interest.