A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experiences of Counseling Students in a Co-Facilitated Experiential Group

Research on experiential learning, group psychotherapy, and neuroscience has supported the inclusion of the experiential group in counseling training programs for the positive impact on students’ personal and professional development (Denninger, 2010; Zhu, 2018). This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of master’s level counseling students in a group co-facilitated by a doctoral student and a professor. Results of this research provide a deeper understanding of counseling students’ experiences in a co-facilitated experiential group and offer a rationale for best practices in the facilitation of the required group experience in counseling training programs.