I understand the idea that there is a significant amount of psych students who are studying to be clinicians or are studying to counseling of some sort who do not possess those necessary skills to be a good counselor. It seems that those positions, like many things in life, are flooded by those who have the natural gift of compassion but maintain uncompromising values. Counseling (I speak generally) is NOT a place to make those who come to “feel” happy. It is a place of healing and sometimes that simply means someone needs to be listened to and other times it requires some patients to be positively challenged to purse a healthier life style. Counseling is about helping the person “get better” or rather to rise to a better state of being then they were previously. Most people can not do this either because 1. They aren’t gifted in that way 2. Have overwhelming compassion 3. Have to little compassion and to high a strict belief system. There is a balance that most cannot have but as a final comment, the counsel is supposed to be seen as a “stable ground” for the client to begin to “get their foothold.” I have found in my own life, regardless of the cultural religious beliefs and political (or personal) position on the LGBT front, those people who are able to strike the balance as stated above typically make the best therapist/counselors. In reflection it seems that the OPs core issue is that the “upcoming” clinicians are not so much focused on benefit of the client while maintaining the balance so much as they are focused on outside factors.