Critical moments in career construction counseling

An important research need concerns identifying and describing factors that promote reflexivity and change in life-design career interventions. Career construction counseling, a primary life-design intervention, uses narrative methods in an interpersonal process of helping people design a work life through reflexive action. Using Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR), the present study examined what prompts reflexivity and change in career construction counseling. A single case analysis method involving a 24-year old Caucasian woman examined one client's experience of processes that prompted change and reflection about her current career transition. Post-counseling IPR with the client of her videotaped career construction counseling session indicated five major themes: (a) role models prompt identity reflection, (b) early recollections foster cohesion, (c) follow-up questions add depth to the story, (d) counselor as audience provides clarity and validation, and (e) career construction interview questions illuminate perspective and need for action. Results support prior research indicating the usefulness of career construction counseling for promoting reflexive action in life design.     

The career construction interview and literary analysis

The aim of this study was to examine what changes occurred in a career construction interview (CCI), what elements contributed to these changes and how reflexivity was fostered. Two clients and two counselors participated in interpersonal process recall (IPR) interviews (Larsen, Flesaker, & Stege, 2008) to review CCI interviews they had previously participated in. The CCI was reported based on the construction and reconstruction that took place during the interview. The IPR interviews were analyzed qualitatively by means of the grounded theory method. Then the two CCI's were submitted to literary analysis based on Greimas's narrative semiotics (Vilhjálmsdóttir & Tulinius, 2009) in order to determine whether and in what way the counselor missed something during the interview. The article concludes that the CCI is very effective but could be made even more so if the counselors received more training in literary analysis, more specifically narrative semiotics.     

Prompting reflection and learning in career construction counseling

Adopting the overall framework provided for an international inquiry into career counseling interventions, this article reports on a qualitative study into the efficacy of a relatively new approach to practice in England. Using career construction interviews as the counseling intervention, research involving two adult participants was undertaken. Interpersonal process recall (IPR) was used to explicate the perceptions and understandings of both the participants and the counselor in the process. Outcome analysis framed the approach used to making sense of the data collected. Two contrasting responses were immediately evident from participants in the counseling intervention: one positive and one negative. The use of the IPR process enabled an understanding of the value of a structured process of reflection.     

Career construction counseling: A thematic analysis of outcomes for four clients

Thematic analysis was used in this study of career construction counseling with four diverse, purposively-selected participants. After the intervention, the participants who sought and received career construction counseling were interviewed to determine their experience of the intervention. The results showed the value of career construction counseling in bringing about change in the participants' career-life stories.