Why You Still Feel Like You Don’t Know What You’re Doing (Even When You Do)
There’s a moment that happens in the counselling room, usually about ten minutes into a session, where you go quiet on the inside.
Not a good quiet. Not the kind of stillness that says I’m fully present. I mean the kind where a small, persistent voice shows up and starts asking questions you really wish it wouldn’t.
Is this the right approach?
Should I have reflected that differently
What if I’m missing something important here?
Your client is still talking. You’re nodding. You look composed.But inside, you are quietly convinced that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.
I want to talk about that moment. Because if you’re an early career counsellor and you’ve never experienced it — I’d be more worried, not less.
The Secret Nobody Tells You
Here’s what I’ve noticed, both as a counsellor and as a supervisor: the counsellors who feel most uncertain are often the most attuned. Not because doubt is a virtue in itself, but because genuine attunement to another person is inherently uncomfortable.
You’re sitting with real pain, real complexity, real human mess — and if you’re fully present to that, it should feel like something.
The problem isn’t that you feel uncertain. The problem is that you’ve interpreted that uncertainty as evidence of incompetence.
It isn’t.
What you’re experiencing has a name — and it’s not just imposter syndrome (though that’s part of it). It’s the experience of being genuinely humbled by the weight of this work. And that humility, rightly held, is one of the most important things you bring into the room.
The counsellors who worry me aren’t the ones who wonder if they’re doing enough. They’re the ones who’ve stopped wondering.
The Competence You Can’t See
Here’s the thing about clinical skill in the early years: so much of what you’ve learned has been internalised without you realising it. You track nonverbals without being told to. You notice a shift in someone’s breathing. You feel the temperature change in the room when a client brushes past something important. You choose your words carefully.
You do all of that — and then you walk out and say, “I don’t know if I’m any good at this”.
You’ve conflated certainty with competence. But they were never the same thing.
Experienced practitioners aren’t certain. They’re comfortable with uncertainty. They’ve learned to tolerate not knowing while still holding the work. That’s the shift — not from doubt to confidence, but from doubt-as-paralysis to doubt-as-information.
Your uncertainty is telling you something. Are you listening to what it’s actually saying, rather than just dreading it?
What’s Really Happening in Those Moments
When that voice shows up mid-session — the one questioning everything — it’s usually not a sign that you’re out of your depth. It’s often a sign that you’re close to something real.
Clients sense when we’re near the edge of something significant in their story. The session gets heavier. The material gets more layered. And we respond — sometimes by going quiet, sometimes by grasping for a technique, sometimes by wondering if we should have said something different three minutes ago.
That scramble isn’t failure. It’s contact. It means you’re in it with them.
The question isn’t how do I stop feeling this? The question is: how do I work with this feeling rather than against it? How do I bring it somewhere — into supervision, into reflection, into honest conversation — so it becomes useful information rather than quiet shame?
Three Things Worth Sitting With
These aren’t tips. They’re invitations — places to slow down and look a little more closely.
Separate the feeling from the fact.
The feeling of not knowing is not the same as actually not knowing. Before you accept the verdict your anxiety is handing you, ask yourself:
What did I actually do well in that session
What was I tracking?
What did I notice?
You may be surprised.
Let complexity be complex.
Early career counsellors often believe that if they were better, things would feel clearer. But the truth is, the more you grow, the more you see. You’re not confused because you’re incompetent. You’re seeing more than you used to — and that is disorienting, at first.
Name what you’re carrying.
The thoughts and doubts you leave unspoken have a way of growing heavier in the dark. Bringing them into the light — in supervision, in reflection, in conversation with a trusted colleague — usually reveals that what felt like evidence of failure is actually evidence of growth.
Why This Is Exactly What Supervision Is For
I’ve sat with many early career counsellors in supervision over the years, and there is a pattern I see again and again: they come in apologising.
“Sorry, I’m not sure I handled this well. I know this is probably a silly question. I might have got this wrong”.
What they share next is, almost without exception, thoughtful, nuanced, and clinically sound. They are not struggling as much as they think they are. But they have nowhere to take that realisation. No one to hold it with them. No space to hear it reflected back.
That’s what good supervision does. Not just case management, not just skill development — though those matter enormously.
Good supervision gives you a space to discover that you’re more capable than you believe yourself to be. And that’s not a small thing. That’s the kind of knowing that stays with you into the room.
If supervision in your life right now feels perfunctory, or like a box you tick, or even slightly anxiety-provoking — that’s worth noticing. It should feel like the most clarifying hour of your professional week.
A Closing Thought
There’s a Bible verse that has stayed with me for a long time, from Proverbs: I keep coming back to it in this work. Not because I think of supervision as friction — though sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed — but because growth in this profession almost never happens in isolation. We need other minds, other perspectives, other voices that can say: Yes, I see what you’re carrying. Here’s what I see in you.
If you’re in your early years of practice, I want you to hear this clearly:
the uncertainty you feel is not disqualifying. It is, in many ways, exactly what should be there. The question is not whether you’ll feel it — you will — but whether you have somewhere to take it.
If you don’t, I’d genuinely love to talk. Supervision should feel like a place where you come to understand yourself better — as a clinician, and as a person. If that kind of space sounds like something you need, reach out. My door is open.
Thank you for all you do as a counsellor; as a carrier of hope in the lives of those who core through your door!
God Bless!
WG
Wayne George is a registered counsellor and professional supervisor based in Brisbane, Australia. He works with early career counsellors, trainee counsellors, and allied health professionals through Samway Consulting. If you’re interested in individual or group supervision, you’re welcome to get in touch.
