The authors of the Major Contribution have developed a complex and elegant three-level training model on which they suggest advanced microskills may be built. Prior to the description of their model, they have built a case that current microskills training has proved foundationally important but insufficient to training needs. They then invite…

Focusing on the challenges of training counseling psychologists, Ridley and colleagues offer in this issue a review and critique of microskills training, the dominant training model in counseling psychology graduate programs. Recognizing the role of higher order cognitive and affective functions in expert practice, they propose a hierarchical…

Working from their proposed model of counseling competence, the authors address critical implications and applications of the model. First, they present a 10-parameter juxtaposition of the model of counseling competence and the microskills training model, including points of comparision and contrast. Second, they discuss implications of the model…

For more than four decades, the microskills approach has been the dominant paradigm for training entry-level counseling students. At its inception, the model met a critical need: instruction in discrete counseling behaviors, which at the time was conspicuously missing from training curricula. Although these behaviors have become essential…

This article represents an invited reaction to the series of articles critiquing the microskills approach predominant in most counseling training programs as well as the new model of counseling competence presented in this issue. The authors note that the microskills approach has been a useful and well-researched framework in the field, although…

The Practical Skills Model of Multicultural Engagement represents an attempt to create a means for moving beyond the development of knowledge and awareness into the development of skills that will assist practitioners to practice in a culturally competent manner. The model builds on basic counseling skills, combining them with specific approaches…

This article describes a four-part framework for career awareness in career decision-making. This model consists of institutional influences on career awareness and choice, the concept of career awareness, skills of self-assessment and decision-making, and the making of actual decisions in career-forming situations. (Author/HLM)