Using a qualitative design, a clinical mental health counselor explored the use of trauma-informed self-regulation strategies with clinical mental health counselors in training (CITs) to capture their experience of vicarious trauma. Participants included three CITs in an urban setting and two CITs in a rural setting enrolled in a CACREP-accredited (The Council of Accreditation and Counseling Programs) internship during Fall 2023. This researcher employed a double hermeneutic phenomenological method by conducting semi-structured interviews and asked CITs to complete a self-regulation tool. Thematic analysis yielded 10 themes relevant to the prevention of vicarious trauma which were as follows: passion for the field, a personal history of counseling as a stated reason for the pursuit of the field, strengths as a listener, establishing client safety with trauma-informed approaches, empathic engagement during client sessions, somatic responses to client material before and following sessions, feelings of inadequacy following sessions, areas of training needed (e.g., labeling techniques), feelings of frustration, and self-regulation strategies. Emotional and somatic responses were compared to ventral vagal principles of polyvagal theory (Porges, 2009) and a self-regulation tool developed by the researcher, The Counselor in Training Tool for Self-Regulation (CITT-SR). The results, limitations, and areas of future research are discussed within the Spectrum of Prevention framework (Cohen et al., 2010). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]