Development as a professional counsellor is a lifelong process today. There are many factors influencing
it such as education, professional environment and supervision. This paper analyses the results of selfassessment of novice counsellors about their professional and personal development. At the initial stage,
most of all young specialists are concentrated on the experiences related to the practice of counseling. At
the cognitive level, they have difficulty to see what is happening systemically, they work more
situationally. At the same time, at the personal level, there is a desire for development, self-knowledge, an
appeal for help to senior colleagues. They consider their own client experience as a resource for this
development. A comparative analysis showed that already at the first stage of the formation of
professional identity, novice counseling psychologists experienced many similarities with specialists at
higher stages of professional development in an awareness of the significance of the constant growth of
professional skill and the formation of personal qualities At the same for beginners, stressful involvement
in work is characteristic, whereas for experienced specialists it is more likely therapeutic involvement.
Assessing personal characteristics, beginner and experienced counselors identify similar characteristics
associated with interpersonal skills. However, experienced specialists have a more differentiated attitude
to use these skills when working with different categories of clients; experienced specialists have a great
depth of self-understanding. Interpersonal skills of novice specialists are more generalized, they are used
more superficially. These results can be taken into account in developing of training programs.