The purpose of this study is to compare the case conceptualizations of beginning and experienced
counselors through projective psychological test materials, and to investigate possible difference between the
two groups in extend their case conceptualizations are consistent with the actual information of the client
in case. To this end, 10 beginning and 10 experienced counselors were recruited through the snowball
sampling method from private and public counseling institutions such as the College Student Counseling
centers, Adolescent Counseling Centers in the B and G city. These two groups of subject were presented
with various data of anonymous client, such as her personal and family information, and her test results of
projective psychological tests like Kinetic Family Drawing, Thematic Apperception Test, and Sentence
Completion Test. These case conceptualizations were coded and rated by 3 raters including the researcher
on the rating guidelines by Kim(2001) and Lee(2001). Besides, the case conceptualizations were rated by the
client concerning how much their contents reflect the actual situation of the client. The results of the study
were as follows. First, the experienced counselors included more elements in their case conceptualization
than beginners. Second, the experienced counselors had broader understanding of clients' current problem
and symptoms and a more comprehensive understanding of personal characteristics and interpersonal factors
of the client, than beginners. Third, the client rated the experienced counselors as excelling the beginners
in that the case formulations of the experienced helped her explore more into unknown parts of the
personality and represented more comprehensive understanding of her real personality.