What is the purpose of professional consultation? What is the role of the consultant, and how is that defined? How does consultation benefit one’s clinical practice and professional longevity? What makes one qualified to act as a consultant to another practitioner? These questions are important and will set the stage for the topics discussed in this workshop.

Consultants and supervisors play crucial roles in the ongoing development and formation of mental health practitioners. Continued professional development – both formal and informal – in the context of relationships with peer and mentor professionals is predictive of the longevity of one’s career (Hensel et al., 2015). Additionally, consultants have the opportunity and hold responsibility to support the self-awareness of clinicians who consult with them, because this will improve the accuracy of the consultees’ self-perceptions of competency (Waltman et al., 2016).

The roles that consultants and supervisors play are many and varied. Thus, it is incumbent upon the consultant to define the role as collaboratively as possible and communicate this to the consultee – both at the beginning of the consultation relationship and periodically as clarifications are warranted.

This workshop will outline the definitions of supervision and consultation, and the essential elements of consultation in general. Several types of consultation and how they commonly occur in relation to the practice of trauma-focused psychotherapy will be explored. Particular attention will be given to the approach offered within the Integrative Developmental Model of supervision (IDM, Soltenberg & McNeil, 2009/2016), and evaluation of clinicians’ fidelity and proficiency with regard to implementation of a particular treatment approach. Finally, participants will have the opportunity to consider their role(s) as experienced or aspiring consultants and their corresponding approach(es) to consultation.

Notably, for the purpose of this discussion, it is assumed that the consultant is not also the legal supervisor of the consultee. This workshop will explore distinctions between the roles of supervisor and consultant, then focus on the counselor formation aspects that are common to both before concentrating more exclusively on elements that are more likely to be found in consultation between a clinician and a consultant who is not also the clinician’s clinical supervisor.