Glossary
Clinical Training Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the clinical-training and counseling-education terms you’ll see across Praxplay — what they mean and how they connect to deliberate, repeatable practice.
AI Therapy Simulation
- AI therapy simulation uses artificial intelligence to create realistic, interactive client scenarios that professionals and learners can practice with. Instead of scripted role-play, the AI responds dynamically to the practitioner’s approach, providing a safe environment to rehearse therapeutic conversations and receive feedback. How AI therapy simulation works.
Roleplay Simulator
- A roleplay simulator is software that lets a person practice a real-world conversation with a responsive virtual character. In clinical training, a roleplay simulator like Praxplay lets clinicians rehearse sessions with AI personas that react in real time, then review structured feedback and try again. See Praxplay.
Standardized (Simulated) Patient
- A standardized or simulated patient is a person trained to portray a client’s symptoms and history consistently so trainees can practice and be assessed. AI simulation extends this idea by making realistic practice available on demand, without scheduling or staffing live actors.
Deliberate Practice
- Deliberate practice is a structured method of skill development built on focused repetition, immediate feedback, and incremental refinement of specific behaviors. In clinical training it means repeatedly rehearsing targeted skills — not just accumulating session hours — to measurably improve performance.
Clinical Supervision
- Clinical supervision is the process by which an experienced clinician oversees and guides a trainee’s development, reviewing their work and supporting growth in skill and judgment. Practice tools can extend supervision by letting supervisees rehearse between sessions so supervision time focuses on deeper insight. Praxplay for supervisors & instructors.
Practicum
- A practicum is an early, supervised clinical experience in which students begin working with real clients while receiving close oversight. Under CACREP standards, a counseling practicum is a minimum of 100 hours, including at least 40 hours of direct client service.
Internship (Counseling)
- A counseling internship is the advanced supervised field experience that follows the practicum. Under CACREP standards it totals a minimum of 600 hours, including at least 240 hours of direct service with clients.
CACREP
- CACREP — the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs — is the accrediting body that sets standards for counseling degree programs in the United States, including required practicum and internship hours and supervision ratios.
Motivational Interviewing (MI)
- Motivational interviewing is a collaborative, client-centered counseling style for strengthening a person’s own motivation and commitment to change. It emphasizes open questions, reflective listening, and guiding rather than directing — skills that benefit from repeated, realistic practice. Practice modalities with Praxplay.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Cognitive behavioral therapy is a structured, evidence-based approach that helps clients identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. Clinicians can use simulation to rehearse delivering CBT techniques before applying them with real clients.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Dialectical behavior therapy is an evidence-based treatment that combines acceptance and change strategies, teaching skills in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. It is often used with high-risk and emotionally dysregulated clients.
Therapeutic Alliance
- The therapeutic alliance is the collaborative, trusting relationship between clinician and client, widely recognized as one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes. Practicing how to build and repair the alliance — especially in difficult moments — is a core clinical skill.
Counseling Self-Efficacy
- Counseling self-efficacy is a clinician’s belief in their own ability to perform counseling tasks effectively. Research shows it increases significantly with hands-on practicum experience, underscoring the value of repeated, realistic practice.
Telehealth Counseling
- Telehealth counseling is the delivery of therapy or counseling over secure video or phone rather than in person. It introduces its own communication challenges — managing rapport, silence, and presence through a screen — that clinicians can rehearse in simulation.
Clinical Presence
- Clinical presence is a clinician’s grounded, attuned, and intentional way of being with a client in the moment. It develops through experience; simulation provides repeated, low-stakes opportunities to build it before high-stakes real sessions.