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The Counseling Psychologist

Notes on the Path 39(6) 887­–896

© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0011000011402699
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and Colleagues’
Major Contribution

Robert L. Hatcher1

Abstract
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. Rec-
ognizing the role of higher order cognitive and affective functions in expert
practice, they propose a hierarchical model of considerable complexity. In
these comments, the author offers some thoughts about their model in light
of the range of roles and interests that competency models serve, the defini-
tion of competence, and the idea of metacompetency.

Keywords
competence, graduate education

In their major contribution, Ridley and colleagues have offered a review and
critique of the dominant training model for clinical skills in counseling psy-
chology graduate programs, microskills training. They conclude that a broader
conceptualization of the competency goals and the means to teach them is

1
The City University of New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:
Robert L. Hatcher, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York,
365 Fifth Avenue, Room 6422, New York, NY 10016
Email: [email protected]

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888 The Counseling Psychologist 39(6)

needed for counseling psychologists. Focusing on counseling with clients,

they offer a much expanded conceptual model for the competencies involved
and conclude with a set of suggestions as to how the model can be applied in
graduate training.
In what follows, I will briefly frame where I’m coming from for this discus-
sion and sketch a take on the authors’ frame of reference for their major contri-
bution. Then, I offer some perspective on the range of interests that concerned
parties have in relation to competencies models and, in this light, consider the
definition of competencies. This is followed by a brief review of what I see
as the new contributions of Ridley and colleagues’ articles, as well as their
limitations, followed by some suggestions as to where further progress could
be made.

Where I’m Coming From

Professional competencies have been an interest for some years, beginning
with the 2002 Competencies Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona (Kaslow et al.,
2004). Working with the Association of Psychology Training Clinics and the
Council of Chairs of Training Councils, I helped create a developmental com-
petencies model for practicum and pre-practicum training in professional
psychology (CCTC, 2007; Hatcher & Lassiter, 2007) and contributed to the
development of the Benchmarks Competencies (Fouad et al., 2009; Kaslow
et al., 2009). Since that time, I have been involved in an implementation
study for the Benchmarks Competencies. All of these various projects and
documents were aimed at specifying the full range of competencies that
characterize professional psychology and considering how these competen-
cies could be assessed.

Where I See Ridley, Mollen,

and Kelly Coming From
Ridley, Mollen, and Kelly’s perspective on competencies comes from their
focus on counseling work with clients, in particular as conceptualized in the
training offered to students in counseling psychology graduate programs. For
many years, counseling psychology has led the field with its robust microskills
training model for introducing clinical skills to graduate students, which has
been supported by a vigorous research effort. Ridley and colleagues have
found problems with this model, with the research that supports its use, and
with its assumptions about training. In brief, their concerns about the model
are that it is too focused on fragmentary behavioral skills, overlooking research

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Hatcher 889

on expertise that demonstrates that higher level cognitive and affective functions
organize these skills within a goal-directed framework of competent action,
which in this case would be counseling. To correct these deficits, they define
competence in terms of counseling outcomes and offer a comprehensive
competency model (within the confines of counseling interventions), using a
hierarchical system of cognitive and affective features ranging from microskills
to metacognitions.

Ridley and Colleagues’ Definition of

Competence: Preliminary Considerations
Ridley and colleagues note that a version of Epstein and Hundert’s (2002)
definition of competence is often used (e.g., Fouad et al., 2009): “habitual
and judicious use of communication, knowledge, technical skills, clinical
reasoning, emotions, values, and reflection in daily practice for the benefit
of the individual and community being served” (Epstein & Hundert, 2002,
p. 226). As they point out, this definition makes use of many ambiguous terms
whose relationships are unclear. They offer a broader definition of compe-
tence as the “determining, facilitating, evaluating, and sustaining of intended
outcomes” (Ridley, Mollen, & Kelly, 2011, p. 835), and they try to define
these four categories of actions in their model. I would note that neither
definition has an explicit reference to performance that meets standards—to
doing things well, or well enough. We will return to this issue later.

Expectations of a Competency Model

Competency models or schemes serve the interests of many concerned par-
ties and thus should and often do address the needs, values, and concerns of
a wide range of relevant parties. These parties include graduate training pro-
grams and their students and faculty, clients seeking professional services,
professional associations and the profession inclusively (i.e., everyone in the
profession), and bodies concerned with credentialing and with protecting
the public. We might also want to include the public more generally and their
elected representatives, the judiciary and legal system, international profes-
sional organizations, and organizations in other countries. Each party has some
claim on the competencies scheme. Let us look at some of these claims in
more detail.
Consider first that the claims of training programs, including graduate
programs, practicum sites, internships, postdoctoral programs, and continu-
ing education programs, have a major commitment to educating and training

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890 The Counseling Psychologist 39(6)

competent professionals. These programs have a deep and growing investment

in comprehensive competency models in order to plan, implement, and eval-
uate both their overall educational plans and methodologies across students
and the training and education of individual students. This has been described
as a “culture of competency” within the training world (Roberts, Borden,
Christiansen, & Lopez, 2005). Competency models also help programs in
meeting the requirements of internal (e.g., university) and external (e.g.,
accreditation) reviews and assessments. In addition, students and trainees
need a comprehensive competencies scheme to help them plan their own
professional development/career, to guide them as they apply to graduate
programs by helping them determine whether the program meets their needs
and goals. They can be helped during the course of their program to determine
what to study, how to study it, and where to study. A model helps students to
identify strengths and weaknesses in their own performance and to identify
areas of interest, commitment, or deficiency that need educational attention.
Professional associations can use a comprehensive competencies model
to set the mission and the overall goals of the association, to help members
maintain and enhance their competencies (e.g., areas for programs and CE),
to set and maintain standards (e.g., ethics committees), and to represent the
profession in various professional and political areas, such as when states
develop or modify licensing laws. Considering the profession as a whole, a
comprehensive competencies model is expected to reflect and embody pro-
fessional values and ethics, including ethical values and standards concern-
ing responsible patient care and the maintenance of appropriate scientific
standards. Furthermore, a competencies model can be used for “political”
purposes—for example, to help promote social/political change in line with
professional values and ethics. It can be used for purposes internal to the
profession—for example, to help focus and evaluate debate on controversial
issues within the profession (e.g., what is evidence and what is its proper
role in client care/professional action; what is the proper balance between
individual rights and other aspects of social good).
Finally, bodies concerned with professional credentialing/protecting the
public (e.g., licensing boards, accrediting bodies) need a comprehensive
competencies scheme to establish appropriate minimum standards of compe-
tence to protect the public, appropriate standards for continuing professional
development and demonstration of ongoing competence, and methods for
assessing/verifying the meeting of these standards. A competencies model
can help these organizations to engage with the profession in promoting and
valuing credentialing/licensure and can help in demonstrating the value of
credentialing/licensure to other concerned bodies.

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Hatcher 891

These observations point to the fact that competency models serve many
purposes and the purposes of many groups. Thus, competency models should

1. encompass and delimit the range of actions, attitudes, and values

that characterize the profession.
2. define at least minimum standards for these actions, attitudes, and
values.
3. describe the actions, values, and attitudes needed to best promote the
welfare of clients/patients. Ideally, competencies should be demon-
strated to be necessary and sufficient to this task.
4. embody the ethical and professional values of the profession. These
ethical and professional values should promote the welfare of clients/
patients, but the internal workings of the profession are a signifi-
cant motivation/basis for a number of competencies, such as being
courteous/respectful/nondiscriminatory toward other professionals.
5. characterize the progressive acquisition of competence by describ-
ing or categorizing a series of expected or minimal necessary steps,
keyed to appropriate stages in the training process (e.g., practicum,
internship).
6. be useable. They should be accessible and understandable, and they
should be useful and useable in the various tasks important to users
of the model, including training, evaluation, and advocacy.

Defining Competence: Further Considerations

Ridley and colleagues’ contribution focuses on competence in the domain of
counseling clients and, more specifically, on the behavioral, cognitive, and
affective features that can be linked to client outcomes. A good argument can
be made that this aspect of competence is the defining domain of counsel-
ing psychology, but as we can see from the range of expectations for com-
petence described above, it is incomplete. Not all key counseling psychology
competencies are proximally linked to client outcomes, and many reflect
ethical and professional values that are value based rather than outcome
based. Of course, all can be viewed as having bearing on effective client care
in a distal sense. A counseling psychologist who knows and understands the
values and methods of colleagues in other professions, or who is respectful
to other counseling psychologists, is ethical in his or her dealings with col-
leagues, students, and the public, or can effectively critique a psychotherapy
research study, is likely to be better equipped to help a client, even if these
competencies are not conceptualized as directly related to client outcomes.

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892 The Counseling Psychologist 39(6)

These are examples of what have been termed the foundational competencies
that underlie all activities of a competent psychologist and that include pro-
fessionalism, ethics, adherence to scientific principles, and multicultural
knowledge and understanding (Fouad et al., 2009; Rodolfa et al., 2005).
Judgments about competence require some sort of standard, and neither
Ridley and colleagues’ (2011) nor Epstein and Hundert’s (2002) definitions
make reference to standards (nor does the model of Fouad et al., 2009, for
that matter). Accrediting and licensing bodies expect competence standards
in order to determine whether a program meets accreditation standards
(American Psychological Association, Commission on Accreditation, 2009)
or an individual meets requirements for licensing (Association of State and
Provincial Psychology Boards, 2002). Ridley and colleagues’ ( 2011) defini-
tion would lend itself to inclusion of standards because it is linked to a
fairly identifiable outcome. The issue of standards shows up in the occa-
sional moment of tension between their definition of competence and their
discussion of it, in the matter of “facilitating” client outcomes versus “attain-
ing” outcomes (p. 835). Do we hold students accountable for client outcomes,
or do we expect them to offer clients the best, or at least some approximation
of the best, that we can offer in hopes of a good outcome?
Ultimately, those aspects of competence that are instrumental to desired
outcomes would be identified through research. Currently, research plays
some role in this task, but much is determined by professional judgment.
The research support that some features of technique have received tends to
be as parts of treatment packages. Research to unpack exactly which of
these features are actually instrumental to outcomes is still at the beginning
stages (Kazdin, 2007). This fact makes all competency models, Ridley and
colleagues’ included, essentially a set of best guesses as to what makes a
competent psychologist, insofar as they deal with effecting desired
outcomes.

Assessment of Ridley
and Colleagues’ Contribution
Ridley and colleagues’ model is focused on the skills and processes involved
in effecting client change, with an eye to how best to train students in master-
ing these skills, and although it has larger ambitions, it grows out of a critique
of the microskills training focus of counseling psychology. Its major innova-
tion is its focus on expert competence and the cognitive/affective faculties
that organize expert performance. Basically, expert performance is organized
by a hierarchy of higher order cognitive and affective processes, culminating

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Hatcher 893

in metacognitive capacities that include keeping the goal of the activity in

mind; these capacities organize specific skills into operational groups that are
employed to reach the goal. Based on their conceptualization of expert perfor-
mance, their system has an implicit model of the trainee, which is elaborated
in their recommendations for training. Ridley and colleagues propose that
students should introduce from the start the overall goals for the client that
guide treatment and that they should cultivate the associated higher order
cognitive and affective skills needed to address these goals. They suggest that
students are ready for this when they first begin their training.
Ridley and colleagues emphasize the differences between their approach
and that of microskills training, in particular around the higher order skills,
and their explicit inclusion of these skills is a significant strength of their
model. Ridley and colleagues make a plausible case that including early
training for these higher order skills would be valuable in developing compe-
tent performance. There is a good deal of additional research and theory that
would support this argument across many domains (e.g., Alexander, 2004;
Charlin, Boshuizen, Custers, & Feltovich, 2007; Garcia-Retamero & Dhami,
2009; McLaughlin, Coderre, Mortis, & Mandin, 2007). This early training
approach is in contrast to the views of other counseling psychologists, who
believe that students should start with microskills training and turn later to
building higher order skills (e.g., Hill, Stahl, & Roffman, 2007). These edu-
cators do not leave higher order skills out of their discussion but, rather, see
them as further steps in training. This difference between highly experienced
educators in counseling psychology is basically an empirical question that
could be addressed by research.
Ridley and colleagues’ (2011) model is very complex, even as its focus is
restricted to counseling interventions. I found this complexity to be interest-
ing and challenging, but I also have some concern that its branching hierar-
chical structure may overspecify the domain to the loss of some flexibility
and utility in actually putting the model to use. For what it is worth, I would
recommend a broader, more flexible approach to the metacognitive capaci-
ties that the authors have authoritatively delineated (calling them “metacog-
nitions” in the process, which seems to detract somewhat from their role as
functions or capacities in the model). The authors have made a valuable case
for the idea that competencies as implemented in counseling are goal directed,
and they have noted that flexibility and compensation for errors in pursuit of
these goals are important features of competent performance. I would think
that this would be an overarching metacompetency—the ability continuously to
evaluate the use of any of the subordinate competencies, including those that
the authors call metacognitions, to achieve the goal of helpful client change.

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894 The Counseling Psychologist 39(6)

This would apply to each facet of their definition of competence—“determining,

facilitating, evaluating, and sustaining intended outcomes” (2011, p. 835). For
example, what would be the best way to engage this particular client given
the client’s reluctance to talk about an important event? Flexibility in choos-
ing interventions would be the hallmark here; unexpected, creative, matched-to-
the-situation use of microskills may be of great value. Here, expert knowl-
edge of the domain would allow the most effective choice of tactics
(Alexander, 2004). Stiles, Honos-Webb, and Surko (1998) have offered a
valuable, clinically relevant, and research-based account of this overarching
metacompetency.
The complexity of Ridley and colleagues’ model also poses significant
challenges for assessment, perhaps greater than those posed by more behav-
iorally anchored models such as the Competencies Benchmarks approach
(Fouad et al., 2009). As such, it is likely to be of greatest value to educators
and researchers at this point, although the research on the model that the authors
hope will follow would be required to develop effective assessments of these
higher order cognitive and affective skills. Thus, as research demonstrates
the value of the model, its wider use would likely follow.
Ridley and colleagues’ singular focus on effecting change in clients, to the
relative neglect of the many other domains of competence that many consider
to be integral to professional psychology, is both a valuable contribution and
a considerable challenge to our field. Their model should be of great value in
promoting thoughtful integration of contemporary research on acquisition of
expertise into our teaching and our research on how best to train our students.
Elaborating the learning process and exploring how best we can promote it
is certainly the next step in the long road to a culture of competence, and we
owe Ridley and colleagues a debt of gratitude for their major contribution to
this effort.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article.

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Bio
Robert L. Hatcher, PhD, is the director of the Wellness Center at the Graduate Center
of The City University of New York, where he is on the graduate faculty in psychology.
He is president emeritus of the Association of Psychology Training Clinics, an asso-
ciate editor of Training and Education in Professional Psychology, and a consulting
editor for the Journal of Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy Research. His
research and scholarly interests include the alliance in therapy, interpersonal measure-
ment, and professional competencies.

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