Career counseling: applying the systems theory framework of career development

In recent years, career development and career counseling have increasingly been informed by concepts emanating from the constructivist worldview. For example, the Systems Theory Framework (STF; M. McMahon, 2002; M. McMahon & W. Patton, 1995; W. Patton & M. McMahon, 1997, 1999) of career development has been proposed as a metatheoretical account of career development. Furthermore, its theoretical constructs may be applied to career counseling. Thus, the STF provides a theoretical and practical consistency to career counseling and addresses concerns about a gulf between career theory and practice. This article discusses the practical application of the STF of career development as a guide to career counseling.     

the systems theory framework of career development

The Systems Theory Framework (STF; McMahon & Patton, 1995; Patton & McMahon, 2006) of career development was proposed as a metatheoretical framework that accommodates the contribution of all theories and offers an integrative and coherent framework of career influences. In this article, the author provides an overview of the STF, outlines its applications for employment counselors, and considers future directions.     

Career assessment and creativity: potential complementarity or a contradiction in terms?

ABSTRACT

In this research we investigated whether creativity and career assessment are a contradiction in terms or whether, through creative thinking, their potential complementarity in career guidance and counselling can be realised. The research demonstrates the creative application of the systemic Integrative Structured Interview (ISI) for the Self-Directed Search (SDS) with a South African female mid-life career changer. Results indicated that the ISI positions clients as storytellers who create rich systemic stories about their quantitative SDS scores. The constructs of story telling are evident throughout an interview about quantitative scores; the scores become unifying themes across the stories. In sum, the ISI can assist mid-life career changers to make meaning of their career transition; and by embedding career assessment in a systemic story telling process creativity is evidenced as a multilayered process.     

Images of career: Nine key metaphors

This article examines theorists', practitioners', and workers' extensive use of metaphors in the conceptualization of careers. Metaphor constrains career thinking to powerful stereotypes, yet also extends views through the consideration of alternative metaphors and the creation of new ones. Morgan's (1986) method of multiple metaphor is used to develop an eclectic view of career studies. Nine key metaphors for career are considered—the career as inheritance, construction, cycle, matching, journey, encounters and relationships, roles, resource, and story. These metaphors act as frameworks for much career theory, and each presents specific career issues. Together they have the potential to advance thinking about careers beyond the framing of familiar metaphors, and provide a broader and more inclusive understanding of career phenomena.     

Career-learning space: New-dots thinking for careers education

For more than 20 years, both careers education and guidance have drawn much of their rationale from the DOTS analysis which analyses practice for coverage of decision learning (D), opportunity awareness (O), transition learning (T), and self awareness (S). Its assumptions are rooted in theory, unifying the aims of careers education and careers guidance as enabling choice. More recent theory and practice engage a wider range of thinking: they acknowledge the complexity of contemporary career planning, and accommodate interactions which occur in the social and community life of the 'choosing person'. The practical implications are for more progressive career learning, in conditions which enable 'due process' to establish viable bases for both choice and change of mind. This thinking more sharply differentiates careers education from guidance, setting out a strong rationale for the former. It does not replace DOTS, but extends it into a new-DOTS re-conceptualisation termed 'career-learning space'. The effectiveness of career learning is determined by its transferable outcomes. New-DOTS thinking resonates with the conditions for transferable learning. There are possibilities here for building a strong consensus between practice, theory and policy.     

Systems Theory,Family Attachments and Processes of Triangulation: Does the Concept of Triangulation Offer a Useful Bridge?

This article reviews the usefulness of the systemic concept of triangulation as a bridge between systemic thinking and practice and attachment theory. Traditionally attachment theory has theorized and researched with dyads, parent‐child and adult romantic partners, whereas systemic theory has worked therapeutically with the triangle as the basic human relationship; that is, when any two people interact, their interactions are influenced by their respective relationships with the same third person. Here it is argued, for example, that a child's attachment representations are shaped not only by the relationship with each parent but with the relationship between them. Thus, the process of triangulation in intimate relationships is seen in this article to link attachment theory with systemic thinking, as systemic theory needs a theory of love and attachment theory needs to consider how intimate relationships are nested and interconnected in an attachment network.     

infusing systems thinking into career counseling

This study examined the role of career counselors in infusing systems thinking into occupational advising. The authors conducted a qualitative review and analysis of selected literature on systems thinking and analyzed trends for adaptation to career counseling practice. This analysis suggests that career counselors need to infuse systems approaches into professional practice, for example, use of systems language that assists the client in exploring career plans. The authors also identified various new right‐brain directed thinking approaches (Pink, 2006; Shutt, 2008) for use in career counseling sessions. Results and implications are discussed.     

Strengthening Career Human Agency

Rooted in A. Bandura's (1982, 2001b) social cognitive theory, the notion of human agency has received considerable attention in vocational and career psychology for the last 2 decades, especially with the recent emergence of social constructivist thinking in the field. This article continues in the same direction. In reviewing the notion of human agency in the broad life‐career context, the article illustrates and highlights the constructivist philosophy of human intention and action that constitutes the conceptual foundation of career human agency. Implications for career counseling are discussed with suggestions for using and enhancing agentic functioning in individuals' life‐career development.     

Career metaphors and their application in theory and counseling practice

This article, first given as an address to the January 2002 National Consultation on Career Development, Ottawa, Ontario, draws attention to the inevitability of metaphor in human thought, discourse, and theory, including that concerning careers. The article (a) explores the benefits and the dangers of metaphorical thinking and advocates the use of “multiple metaphor” as a means of understanding careers; (b) looks particularly at metaphors in the context of new, more flexible careers; (c) introduces 10 archetypal career metaphors; and (d) considers how career counseling practice can be assisted through the facilitation of metaphorical thinking.     

career concerns of unemployed u.s. war veterans: suggestions from a cognitive information processing approach

The authors examined U.S. war veterans' career concerns (e.g., interests, personality, barriers, career thoughts) to provide possible avenues for research‐based and theory‐driven intervention. The veterans who participated in the study were receiving mental health, substance abuse, and vocational services at a residential facility. Participants were found to have interests in all RIASEC (J. L. Holland, B. A. Fritzsche, & A. B. Powell, 1994; J. L. Holland & G. D. Gottfredson, 1994) interest areas, and negative career thinking was found to be related to a variety of negative indicators. Suggestions are provided for working with veterans using the Cognitive Information Processing approach to career decision making.     

Using portfolios to enhance career resilience

Two groups of government workers were involved in career portfolio development workshops that were designed to expand the workers' thinking about their career accomplishments, enhance their sense of career resilience, and create portfolios. Focus groups conducted after the workshops indicated that participants began to engage in “portfolio thinking” and to think of an expanded range of career options, which were reflective of increased levels of career resilience.     

Applying Chaos Theory to Careers: Attraction and attractors

This article presents the Chaos Theory of Careers with particular reference to the concepts of “attraction” and “attractors”. Attractors are defined in terms of characteristic trajectories, feedback mechanisms, end states, ordered boundedness, reality visions and equilibrium and fluctuation. The identified types of attractors (point, pendulum, torus and strange) and their relevance to career development are described. The attractor concept is then applied to major barriers in career development and life transition by a consideration of closed and open systems thinking. It is contended that ultimately the context of human experience is an open system and that career development difficulties arise when closed systems thinking is used in an open systems reality. The practical counseling applications and counseling research evidence using attractors are briefly reviewed. The additional potential contributions of the Chaos Theory of Careers to the career development field are also outlined.     

Applying Chaos Theory to Careers: Attraction and attractors

This article presents the Chaos Theory of Careers with particular reference to the concepts of “attraction” and “attractors”. Attractors are defined in terms of characteristic trajectories, feedback mechanisms, end states, ordered boundedness, reality visions and equilibrium and fluctuation. The identified types of attractors (point, pendulum, torus and strange) and their relevance to career development are described. The attractor concept is then applied to major barriers in career development and life transition by a consideration of closed and open systems thinking. It is contended that ultimately the context of human experience is an open system and that career development difficulties arise when closed systems thinking is used in an open systems reality. The practical counseling applications and counseling research evidence using attractors are briefly reviewed. The additional potential contributions of the Chaos Theory of Careers to the career development field are also outlined.     

Unemployed Adults’ Career Thoughts,Career Self‐Efficacy,and Interest: Any Similarity to College Students?

Little empirical knowledge about unemployed adults exists during a time when this group needs substantial career assistance. Because there is greater empirical understanding of college student career development compared with what is known about unemployed adults, a chi square and analyses of covariance were used to compare the career thinking, self‐efficacy, and interests of 169 unemployed adults seeking public job center assistance with that of 200 college students. Additionally, a diverse sample of 2,444 unemployed adults is demographically reviewed. Unemployed adults reported a higher level of Realistic interests and similar levels of negative career thinking and career decision‐making self‐efficacy compared with college students.     

Career mobility at the intersection between agent and structure: A conceptual model

The main aim of this paper is to extend the suitability of the concepts of the boundaryless and the protean career for the study of career mobility. To do so, we introduce a conceptual model that maps out the main factors determining and constraining transitions in careers. This model shows marks of European thinking on careers. It not only builds on aspects of both the boundaryless and protean career concepts, but also extends the focus by paying attention to the interplay between agency and structure. It adds to our understanding of the complex interplay between individual and structural factors shaping individuals' careers. An additional added value of the model is that it is built on insights from diverse research streams, including self‐determination theory and turnover literature. The article concludes with a discussion of the main contributions of the model and directions for future research.     

Dimensions of counseling for career development

Counseling practice has not reflected current thinking about career development and career process. Four types of career counseling are described: Type 1, a traditional vocational counseling approach which helps the client with a specific decision; Type 2, which is concerned with teaching decision-making skills; Type 3, which views career development as a process rather than an end-point toward which all decisions lead; and Type 4, which focuses on creating in the individual the ability to utilize his own strengths to achieve self-determined objectives and to influence the nature of future opportunities.     

Gottfredson的职业抱负发展理论简介与研究评述

戈特弗雷德森（L.S.Gottfredson）的职业发展理论是有关职业抱负的内容及其发展的理论。该理论从职业类型、社会地位和性别类型3个维度对职业抱负的发展进行了论述,并提出了职业抱负的发展阶段论和决策过程中的妥协论。该文首先对戈特弗雷德森的职业抱负的发展理论做了简要介绍,然后从职业抱负的范围限定和妥协过程两个方面对已有的有关研究进行了回顾,并提出了已有研究中存在的问题和不足,最后论述了职业抱负发展理论在学校职业辅导中的应用     

Engagement and the Therapeutic Relationship in Systemic Therapy

This paper is about the therapeutic relationship in systemic therapy and, more specifically, about engagement as a process. Beginning with some practice examples, a critique is made of the way in which both the therapeutic relationship and engagement have been under-theorized in systemic therapy. Two different sets of ideas are used to develop some thinking about the process of engagement: the notion of the 'good-enough' engagement as the environment or frame of therapy is developed, and the systemic concept of sequences is held alongside the psychoanalytic ideas of transference, countertransference and projective identification. This theory discussion is used to reflect on the original practice examples.     

Attachment theory and systemic practice: research update

Attachment theory offers a way of thinking about the dyadic relationships within the family system. Family systems theory and therapy can contribute to attachment theory, as dyadic relationships do not exist in isolation but within the context of other relationships. Research at the interface between systemic practice and attachment theory is reviewed with examination of the central role they may play together in the developing understanding of family relationships.     

Impact of Worry on Career Thoughts,Career Decision State,and Cognitive Information Processing Skills

Sixty-nine Amazon Mechanical Turk workers completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Berle et al., 2011), the Career Thoughts Inventory (Sampson et al., 1996a), and the Career State Inventory (Leierer et al., 2017). Worry was significantly correlated with negative career thinking and its dimensions of decision-making confusion and commitment anxiety, with readiness and its dimensions of clarity and certainty, and with the self-assessed cognitive information processing skills of self-knowledge, options knowledge, decision-making, and executive processing. Worry was also found to predict the degree of readiness for career decision-making, negative career thinking, and cognitive information processing requisite skills.