Frustration-Fest 2008

I am so ridiculously frustrated with school right now. I took a group leadership class last fall as a requirement, and a requirement of the class was to actually lead a counseling group - support group, process group, grieving group, whatever. Well, for a number of reasons, I didn't accomplish this during the class. So when a student doesn't lead a group during the group leadership class, he or she has to lead the group when they do their practicum. Which is where I am now.

No big deal, right? WRONG!!!! The original requirement for the class was to lead a group either by yourself, with another student in the class, or with a mental health professional. And there had to be a minimum of 6 sessions led. At the end you turn in a paper about your experience and really don't have to have weekly supervision at all. Now, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal on paper, but when you know no one in the counseling biz and all of your peers have found a group, you have to resort to cold-calling people. I did this last year and got shot down from place to place I called. "We reserve that privilege for our interns" is what I was usually told. So I thought to myself "okay, I'll just do this during practicum." And that is now. This still doesn't seem like a big deal.

Well, here comes the part that pisses me off. Since I waited to do this, it now seems that I am required to lead 10 (TEN!!!!) sessions with a LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor) or a certified school counselor. And get weekly supervision. What's up with the difference? It seems really, really unfair and unethical to me that the majority of my peers were able to do this with relative ease and VERY LITTLE supervision. I feel like I'm being punished for waiting until now to lead a group.

There also seems to be confusion among the faculty and the clinic staff as to what kind of group is acceptable to lead. Some of my peers and I were going to try to lead a group for the new international students on campus to help them with their transition into a new culture. But there would be no LPC with us and we would have to find outside supervision. So, what is happening is that my practicum teacher is telling me to ask my group professor what she will "sign off" on as far as a group, but the group professor is telling us we need to ask our practicum teacher what they want us to do. I feel like no one is willing or able to say "Do this. Get credit." So it is really frustrating and confusing for me. And all this is why I have put it off this long.

Now, I will admit my responsibility in all this. I have had a whole year to get a group lined up to co-lead, and I didn't. I put it off until now. Which was incredibly stupid of me to do, but that's how it is and all I can do is learn from the experience.

It still just frustrates the hell out of me. Ugh.