10 Things I Wish I Knew as a Graduate Student Intern
A series of unfortunate events landed me in graduate school. No, seriously. It was March 2020 (cue the dramatic *the world is about to change forever* music), a global pandemic hit and I lost all of my jobs overnight. And it was a lot of jobs; I was a freelance actor and theatre artist at the time, so I experienced multiple shows and projects shutting down literally overnight. I passed my time blowing bubbles off the balcony, cuddling my cats, and suffering from absolute existential dread that the career I worked so hard for was over.
Over the course of the next year I began reassessing my life, realizing the lack of sustainability in the way I had been working, acknowledging systemic issues I wanted to see change, and coming to the conclusion that, yeah, life was something new now. I enrolled in an online university and began my Clinical Mental Health program in February 2021.
Now, four years since that initial shock, I am one week away from completing my graduate program. Life has evolved in many beautiful and terrifying ways. Honestly, I think it’s impossible to predict how things will unfold. As I process the ending of this chapter, I hold so much compassion for the lost part of me that started this adventure. So if you too are a soon-to-be counselor, therapist, or social worker and are feeling somewhat lost, this is for you.
Ten things I wish I knew when I started my journey as a graduate student intern.
(1) Trust Your Unique Skills
Anyone else cringe at the idea of needing to trust yourself? Take a deep breath and hear me out… you are the only constant on this journey. So, yeah, it’s time to learn to trust yourself!
I felt like a fraud as I sat in my classes with people who had been exploring mental health for years. What did I, an actor, think I was doing here? Turns out, my background has been a huge help for me throughout my internship. I bring this unique skill set to the table which complements therapeutic work wonderfully! My sense of emotional connection, training in how to read people, knowledge of somatic work, breath work, and physicality, plus my innate desire to be creative have served me so much as I work with clients.
The thing I was insecure about ended up being a huge asset. So don’t be afraid to trust your unique skills. You have ended up here for a reason, and your past knowledge will serve you as an intern.
(2) Find a site where your values align
Don’t let the scarcity mindset get to you. I know it can be challenging to find a site placement, and if your school is like mine, you may be hearing advice about taking any placement you can get.
No. Stop right now. Invest your time in finding a site where your values align. This will make your work as an intern feel more valuable and rewarding. The people you are working with at your site are your mentors and future colleagues! You want to be learning from people who view the therapeutic work from a similar lens as you. Ultimately, this will set you on a path of enjoying your internship experience and allow you to craft a vision of your future.
(3) Connect with others
No matter how confident and well-prepared you are, the people at your site are the ones who will lift you up when you are feeling insecure on your journey. I cannot say enough about how amazing my supervisor has been through this. She showed incredible compassion and dedication all while challenging me to grow. I felt seen as a person by my supervisor, who would often provide advice based on my interests and goals, who would ask for my perspective on things, and who has prepared me to enter this next phase of my career. Truly, find a supervisor who you can learn from. This will have a tremendous impact on shaping your experience as an intern.
But it’s not just your supervisor that matters. I was fortunate to find myself surrounded by strong individuals. The owner of the practice taught me (sometimes tough) lessons about marketing and what it’s like to work within a private practice. This ultimately led me to filling and maintaining my caseload, then running a successful group therapy experience. She would drop little nuggets of information in the office which have helped me appreciate the clinical and the business aspects of this work.
When I experienced some unforeseen challenges, the other clinicians graciously stepped in and helped me get hours, shared their spaces with me and allowed me to observe their clinical skills. Not to mention the fabulous advice between sessions about things like exams and the challenges of completing school! During group supervision I received such great support and feedback on cases, including resources and interventions which ultimately helped my clients.
Connect with people at your site and allow them to guide you. People are ready to help if you show up!
(4) Take something off your plate
Oh, hello, you’re a high-achieving student entering the helping field and coping with perfectionist tendencies? Welcome, I see you. And you are going to hate this next point.
You cannot do it all.
Read that again, breathe it in, say it with me, “I cannot do it all.”
Take. Something. Off. Your. Plate.
We talk about burnout all the time in grad school. Burnout, a term first coined by Freudenberger (1975), has three components:
Emotional exhaustion
Depersonalization (loss of empathy, caring, and compassion)
A decreased sense of accomplishment.
You can’t do it all, and trying to will often lead to burnout. It is better to eliminate a responsibility now than be forced to once you experience burnout. So what are some things you can release? As a gig worker, I was able to step away from some gigs that were more time consuming in favor of ones that had more flexible work schedules or paid more. For people with more traditional work lives, you might explore changing to part time. Or, if money and benefits are needed, what can you cut down on at home? Are there less time consuming meals you can make, a simpler cleaning schedule, or people you can call on for support?
(5) Go to therapy
Another wonderful way to combat burnout is through self-care, and one of the best forms of self-care can be going to therapy. You are going to be a support person for many people, and that helping role comes with its own hardships. According to psychology.org, over half of therapists report experiencing compassion fatigue and burnout in their career. As a graduate student therapist, therapy can also be a useful place for you to assess your own triggers and potential blindspots.
Career benefits aside, a personal therapist can be a beautiful space for you to let your walls down and sit in your own vulnerability. You are deserving of an hour each week dedicated to yourself. To sit across from someone and exist, explore, and grow. Take the time to take care of you.
(6) Life will happen, plan for challenges
I (perhaps naively) thought that I could just push through my internship and everything would be fine! I anticipated specific challenges, like tight finances and higher demands on my time, but somehow I forgot that life has spontaneous shit that comes up!
Some of this is smaller stuff, like the flu I caught the week before Christmas which had me doubled over a toilet and unable to see clients that week. Fortunately my supervisor was incredibly supportive and helped me contact clients. The downside: I lost a week worth of hours which I needed to make up somewhere else.
And sometimes life just really turns up, and your sister needs immediate brain surgery to remove a freaking brain tumor?!! Okay, okay, hopefully this doesn’t happen to you, but it happened to me. This is when having a supportive site, supervisor, and colleagues really comes into play. In the two weeks prior to surgery, this amazing team of people showed up and helped me get in extra hours so I could stay on track to graduate and take the time off I needed to be with my sister. I was able to step away from my internship that week knowing that my clients were taken care of, my hours were taken care of, and I had the peace of mind to just focus on my sister (who made it through surgery with amazing bravery).
Moral of the story: life doesn’t pause for your internship. You can’t plan for these big and small things. However, what you can do is add in extra hours throughout so you have wiggle room when things do come up. You can establish a rapport with the people around you and ask for help when needed. You can remember that you are a human, and it’s okay if everything doesn’t happen the way you imagined.
(7) You won’t always feel like a great (or good) therapist
I know you want to be good at this work. Some sessions you will see changes in your clients (or they may tell you something you said helped them). Those moments feel great! Other times, you may question if you’re even good at this.
I remember sitting with a new client and after our first few sessions feeling lost. I had no idea what they needed, was confused why they were in therapy, and felt like I was just listening to their stories.
“Have you considered that maybe they don’t have someone to listen to them?” asked my supervisor. She also pointed out that we were still building our therapeutic rapport. We were growing a foundation of trust; listening, she told me, could be enough.
Listening could be enough?! But what about all the interventions and worksheets and diagnostic plans my school had taught me to expect?! Yes, those can be valuable too. Yet listening, and therapeutic silence, and empathy are core components of this work.
Listening is an action.
I felt like a bad therapist because I wasn’t “doing enough.” That turned out to be false, and my supervisor was right. As the therapeutic relationship grew, our work together deepened. It’s okay to feel like you’re not a good therapist, you are learning. What you can do during those moments is check in with your supervisor, assess yourself for any countertransference or bias, and be vulnerable in admitting that you don’t have all the answers.
(8) Take risks
Growth in your internship can happen when you push yourself outside of your comfort zone. This involves taking (ethical) risks! What might a risk look like within the bounds of your internship? Well, it might be
Trying a new intervention for the first time
Challenging a client
Learning a new skill
Making tough calls
Challenging yourself
Often risks come with rewards. One of my favorite things during my internship was having my supervisor share a new intervention and then implementing it into my sessions. This happened with some therapeutic art techniques, psychodrama, and IFS parts work. I learned so many amazing and creative things from my supervisor! It was exciting to challenge myself and take the risk to expand. Ultimately, these risks served my clients and made me a better therapist.
(9) Plan ahead for licensure
As I approached the end of my internship, most of my stress came from licensure and the National Counselors Exam (NCE). So, my advice to you: plan ahead. No, really, like way ahead. Check with your school about what options they have for you to register for the NCE. Most schools will help you, but often that means you need to register with your school 5-6 months in advance of the exam date. My school had this option, but it wasn’t communicated clearly to my internship cohort until after the registration date had passed. Yikes.
What did this mean for me? Well, each state has different licensure requirements (be sure to know the requirements for your state!). In Maryland, this meant I needed to submit my application for licensure in order to get approval to sit for the NCE. I compiled all my documents, got my background check, and in January I dropped my hopeful-little-envelope into the mail. It then took two months to get approval to take the NCE.
Some things for you to be mindful of:
There will be a gap between finishing school and obtaining licensure. Plan ahead if you want to minimize this gap.
To make this gap shorter, you can take the NCE while in school by registering through your university, or by submitting for licensure prior to graduation and later sending in revised documents (like your NCE scores and final transcript).
All of these items cost money, so budget for it! You have to pay for the licensure application ($200 with application, additional $150 upon eligibility), background check ($50), Maryland State Law Exam ($100), and the NCE ($275).
(10) Be yourself
It is so important for you to bring your authenticity to the work! Part of the joy in being a graduate student intern is in exploring your identity as a therapist. For me, this involved showing up as myself in the room. I’m not a “blank slate” therapist and my clients seem to resonate with that. I’ve had many sessions where one moment we’re laughing together and the next the client is experiencing an emotional breakthrough. I truly believe that creating an authentic and vulnerable space contributes immensely to growing therapeutic rapport.
Being yourself doesn’t mean turning the therapy session into something about you. And it doesn’t mean self-disclosing unnecessarily. What it means is bringing in interventions that excite you and resonate with the client. It means deepening your knowledge in theories which invigorate you. It means leaning into your strengths. It means holding space in a truthful way. Be you, and the clients that resonate with that are the ones that will continue to show up!
Meet the Author: Rae Buchanan
Rae (she/her), a creative therapist passionate about LGBTQIA+ affirmation, neurodiversity, and artistic struggles, empowers adults in Baltimore to navigate life's challenges. She offers individual and couples therapy, fostering a safe space for self-exploration and growth. From professors to artists, Rae tailors her approach to your unique journey.
With a background rich in the performing arts, she is aware of the specific mental and emotional trauma and struggles that are often associated with creative work. Rae also specializes in working with university students, University Students, ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, Life and Career Transitions.