{"value"=>"<p> <span class=\"title\">Development of Professional Identity: A Dual Dilemma for the Dual Degree Student</span></p> <p>This paper examines the ongoing process of the development of professional identity with specific reference to the Dual-Degree Masters Program in dance therapy and social work at Hunter College of the City University of New York. It includes a generalized discussion of the professionalization process from four areas of examination. These are: socialization and role- integration within professional education; the nature of material to be mastered; Ericksonian psychosocial developmental stages both in the life of the student and as a framework for the professionalization process itself; and the self-awareness this process yields and demands.</p> <p>For the Dual-Degree student this process poses the additional dilemma of the integration of two similar but distinctly separate identities. This ongoing search for integration led the author to pursue the subject of professional identity in an effort to understand the nature of learning, growth, and ultimately integration within this process.</p> <p>It is concluded that this is indeed an ongoing process that need not be fully understood or “integrated” at any given time. Rather it is the lifelong process of the self-identity which one's professional identity is but a segment, that is the true integrating force.</p>"}