Early-Career Counselors’ Experiences of Client-Initiated Workplace Violence and Reporting

Client-initiated workplace violence (CI-WPV) poses a threat to the health and well-being of healthcare professionals, including mental health counselors. We conducted a secondary quantitative analysis of survey-based data to examine the prevalence of CI-WPV and incident reporting in a sample of 556 early-career counselors (ECCs). The results indicate that ECCs are especially vulnerable to various forms of CI-WPV. While the majority of counselors shared the incidents of CI-WPV when seeking supervision, fewer ECCs utilized the agency reporting system, leaving potential for CI-WPV to go unnoticed and addressed by agencies. Additionally, it was found that ECCs who identified as cisgender women were more likely to share experiences of CI-WPV by utilizing the agency's reporting system than ECCs who identified as cisgender men. Implications for counselors, counselor educators, and supervisors are discussed.