career development practitioners as advocates for transgender individuals: understanding gender transition

Assisting transgender individuals is a concern for career development practitioners because there is a lack of knowledge on this topic. The complexity of gender reassignment surgery brings challenges and unique needs to this population, throughout gender transition, and requires career development practitioners to understand these challenges and needs to provide appropriate services to transgender individuals. The author conducted a comprehensive review of the literature in the areas of transgender issues in career development and counseling, counseling transgender individuals, gender transition, and multicultural counseling competencies. The role of career development practitioners as advocates for transgender individuals who experience gender transition is discussed.     

Career maturity aspects of the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey

The Kuder Occupational Interest Survey (1979) (KOIS) is used in counseling services as an aid in career counseling, but the KOIS does not have a measure of career maturity. The purpose of this study was to determine if selected scores from the KOIS could be indicative of client career maturity. The data for each subject included three scores from the KOIS and one measure of career maturity. The three scores from the KOIS included the highest Occupation score, the highest College Major score, and either the Father score for male subjects or the Mother score for female subjects. Career maturity was assessed with the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale (1973) (CMI). The three scores from the KOIS were correlated with the score from the CMI to determine the relationship between the KOIS and career maturity. t tests were used to test for significant differences between men and women on the four measures. Significant correlations were found between the KOIS scores and career maturity, supporting the statements in the KOIS manual regarding the relationship between high KOIS scores and maturity. There was no significant difference between females and males on the CMI, Occupation, or College Major scores, but females scored significantly higher on the Mother scale than males did on the Father scale. Implications for career counseling were discussed.     

Client Perceptions of and Preferences for University-Based Career Services

One hundred thirty-three students who were actively seeking career services reported on their perceptions of the similarity among, and their preferences for, 17 different types of career assistance by way of a paired comparison task. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and multidimensional preference modeling procedures were used to map these data into spatial representations. Ethnicity, international/domestic student status, tendency to foreclose (TTFS; Blustein, Ellis, & Devenis, 1989), and previous experience with an interest inventory each accounted for differences in perceptions. All participants preferred career assistance involving direct interaction with employed individuals, but class level, occupational status, previous participation in a career development class, and previous experience with career counseling accounted for differences in preferences.     

Awakening: Career Opportunities After the Storm

Immediately following natural disasters, basic needs are provided; however, the long‐term needs of individuals are neglected. The narrative approach (Brott, 2001; Cochran, 1997) to career counseling is offered as a method to assist survivors of natural disasters to tell their story and create new meaning related to their career paths.     

Causal Attributions and Sex Differences Associated With Perceptions of Occupational Barriers

This study extends previous research addressing sex differences in perceived occupational barriers and evaluates the mediating role of causal attributions in the relationship between perceived occupational barriers and career maturity. Participants (85 women and 30 men) listed their perceived barriers to occupational goals, completed a measure of attributions for career decision making, and completed 2 different measures of career maturity. Findings revealed that a larger proportion of women than men perceived past barriers associated with family-related issues. Results also revealed a significant, negative relationship between the number of perceived occupational barriers and career maturity for participants who believe that career decision making is an externally caused, uncontrollable process. The implications of these findings and suggestions for career counselors to integrate perceived barriers into the counseling process are discussed.     

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.     

Surviving in an era of insecurity

Abstract

Downsizing in its many guises, can have a profound impact on the employees who remain–the so-called survivors. The survivors of such change face many new demands and often find themselves in an environment comprising new organizational forms, different progression opportunities, and new rules for the employment relationship. Such changes may be geared to ensure the survival of the company, yet few organizations appear to provide the support and help required to facilitate personal survival for employees. At the interface between the organization and the individuals who remain lie many issues, including commitment, job security, career aspirations, and progression opportunities, which embody a different concept of career and its realization. This article explores career issues for survivors of the insecure organizational environment.     

Empowering high‐risk clients to attain a better quality of life: a career resiliency framework

Career counselors frequently encounter clients who are at high risk for career and life development difficulties. Research suggests there is a connection between resiliency and successful career development in high‐risk clients. Many high‐risk individuals have poor decision‐making skills and lack motivation to succeed in life and career development. This article describes a career resiliency framework in which career resiliency is best understood within the context of psychological resiliency. Specifically, this article explicates how career counseling from a resiliency theory perspective may promote successful career development for populations dealing with multiple barriers.     

Developmental Career Assessment and Counseling: The C-DAC Model

The C-DAC model seeks to implement current development theory and to use innovative assessment measures together with improved counseling methods to improve vocational and life career counseling. At this stage, the project pays more attention to assessment, partly because if one is to counsel with career maturity in mind, one must understand the developmental status of the counselee. In career counseling, facts as well as feelings are important. Therefore, in this article the authors deal with the assessment of career development in detail, treating interests (measured by the Strong) and expressed preferences as basic status data to be viewed in the light of career maturity, the salience of life roles, and the values sought in life as moderator variables. The instruments are described and their use shown in a sample profile for assessment and checking by the reader in another readily available published source.     

Career and personal counseling: Comparing process and outcome

Increasingly, there is a call to support the integration of career and personal counseling. However, few empirical studies have examined the overlap between these 2 domains. This study examined how career and personal counseling compared on both process and outcome measures. The participants included real clients who sought career and personal counseling at 3 college counseling centers in the U.S. The findings indicated that except in the area of expectations about counseling, there were no significant differences between career counseling and personal counseling. The implications for counseling practice and training are discussed.     

Cognitive behaviour therapy of acute stress disorder: a four-year follow-up

The aim of this study was to index the long-term benefits of early provision of cognitive behavior therapy to trauma survivors with acute stress disorder. Civilian trauma survivors (n = 80) with acute stress disorder were randomly allocated to either cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or supportive counseling (SC) - 69 completed treatment, and 41 were assessed four years post-treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale. Two CBT patients (8%) and four SC patients (25%) met PTSD criteria at four-year follow-up. Patients who received CBT reported less intense PTSD symptoms, and particularly less frequent and less avoidance symptoms, than patients who received SC. These findings suggest that early provision of CBT in the initial month after trauma has long-term benefits for people who are at risk of developing PTSD.     

Are you sure? the role of uncertainty in career

Although uncertainty is a fundamental human experience, professionals in the career field have largely overlooked the role that it plays in people's careers. The changed nature of careers has resulted in people experiencing increased uncertainty in their career that is beyond the uncertainty experienced in their job. The author explores the role of uncertainty in people's experience of their careers and examines the implications for career counseling theory and practice. A review of the career theory and career counseling literature indicates that although contemporary approaches have been offered to respond to the changed nature of career, none of the approaches have identified uncertainty as a core part of individuals' experience of their career. The broader literature on uncertainty is then reviewed at the societal, organizational, and individual levels.     

CF carrier testing: Experience of relatives

Consensus exists that genetic counseling and CF carrier testing should be offered to individuals with a positive family history of CF. To learn more about their experience with genetic counseling and testing we conducted a series of structured telephone interviews and focus group discussions with individuals and couples who had undergone genetic counseling and carrier testing because of a family history of CF. Traditional genetic counseling appears to have been effective for this population. Subjects generally report having a positive counseling experience and few difficulties upon learning their carrier status. Subjects were quite knowledgeable about CF and their carrier risk and were highly motivated to seek testing. They may not be representative of all individuals with a family history of CF however. For carriers, concerns about whether and when to have children tested, and concerns about insurance implications of carrier status may emerge sometime after the initial counseling. Strategies for addressing these concerns and for providing efficient and effective education and genetic counseling for people with a family history of CF need to be developed.     

Constructing careers: actor,agent, and author

When individuals seek career counseling, they have stories to tell about their working lives. The aim of career construction theory is to be comprehensive in encouraging employment counselors to listen for a client's career story from the perspectives of actor, agent, and author. Taking multiple perspectives on career stories enables counselors to offer clients a fitting intervention, whether it is vocational guidance for action, career education and coaching for agency, or career counseling to construct meaning.     

Trauma reactivity, avoidant coping, and PTSD symptoms: a moderating relationship?

In the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, many individuals experience physiological reactivity in response to reminders of the traumatic event that typically lessens over time. However, an overreliance on avoidant coping strategies may interfere with the natural recovery process, particularly for those who are highly reactive to trauma reminders. In the current investigation, we examined avoidant coping as a moderator of the association between heart rate reactivity to a trauma monologue measured shortly after a traumatic event and severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms measured several months later. Fifty-five female survivors of assault completed PTSD diagnostic interviews and a self-report coping measure and participated in a trauma monologue procedure that included continuous heart rate measurement. These procedures were completed within 1 month of the assault and again 3 months postassault. After we controlled for the effect of initial symptom levels, the interaction of heart rate reactivity to the trauma monologue and avoidant coping measured at Time 1 was associated with PTSD symptom severity at Time 2. Individuals who are relatively highly reliant on avoidant coping strategies and relatively highly reactive to trauma reminders may be at greatest risk of maintaining or potentially increasing their PTSD symptoms within the first few months following the trauma. These findings may help inform early intervention efforts for survivors of traumatic events.     

The effects of value confrontation and reinforcement counseling on the career planning attitudes and behavior of adolescent males

An experiment was conducted to compare the relative effectiveness of a value confrontation procedure and a procedure based on verbal operant conditioning in enhancing career development attitudes and increasing the frequency of information-seeking behavior in rural adolescent males. Ninety subjects were identified as internally controlled or externally controlled based on their locus of control scores and then randomly assigned to one of the two experimental treatment groups or a control group. The value confrontation procedure involved developing an awareness of self-dissatisfaction about one's career planning and relating this self-dissatisfaction to the importance one gave to the values logical and responsible. These values had been identified empirically in this study as having a relationship to career planning. The reinforcement counseling treatment involved the interpretation of individual career maturity data followed by the verbal operant conditioning of responses indicative of career maturity. Post tests administered 7 weeks after the treatments showed that the value confrontation procedure resulted in significantly greater frequency of information seeking for internally controlled subjects when compared to the reinforcement counseling and control procedures. No treatment was significant in increasing the maturity level of career development attitudes.     

Integrating Internal Family Systems and Solutions Focused Brief Therapy to Treat Survivors of Sexual Trauma

In a recent study 56% of women and 37% of men were survivors of childhood sexual abuse. These individuals who experience sexual trauma may experience depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or substance use disorders (Devlin et al., in Fam J 27(4):359–365, 2019). While there are several treatment approaches specifically developed to target trauma and its effects, (e.g., trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) we propose that integrating internal family systems therapy (IFS) and solution focused brief therapy (SFBT) offers a brief, systemic way to improve family relationship patterns in families where one member has experienced sexual trauma. A case vignette is used to show the integration of these two approaches.

     

The role of problem-solving appraisal in the process and outcome of career counseling

Because problem-solving appraisal has been demonstrated to be a critical variable in psychological adjustment, this study examined its potential role as both a static and dynamic client attribute influencing the process and outcome of career counseling. Participants were 151 adults who received an average of five sessions of naturally occurring career counseling; data were collected before, during, and after counseling. The results indicated that: (a) in line with a static attribute model, clients' pre-counseling problem-solving appraisal scores predicted post-counseling career and psychological outcomes as well as career decidedness even after partialling out clients' pre-decidedness scores; (b) in line with a dynamic attribute model, clients who experienced positive changes in problem-solving appraisal in counseling were more likely to have more positive career resources to use in their career transitions as well greater goal directedness; (c) participation in career counseling related to positive change in problem-solving appraisal scores at a level similar to problem-solving training workshops; and (d) clients' changes in problem-solving appraisal related to changes in the working alliance over time.     

La résilience dans les situations de licenciement économique : une étude de cas mobilisant les dialogues de conseil en life design

Professional breakdowns are numerous in today's world of work and can lead to psychological distress, precariousness and loss of self-esteem. Resilience gathers a set of psychological attitudes and processes that allow individuals to struggle in order to find life meaning and recover self-confidence after a traumatic event. This article proposes in a first part, a review of the literature on the concept of resilience in connection with career breakdowns and more particularly with layoffs. The second part is a case study that aims to highlight the role and interest of Life Design Counseling Dialogues (LDCDs) (Guichard, 2004) as a career counseling method supporting the implementation of psychological processes that contribute to resilience after a layoff. As part of a career counseling intervention, LDCDs were implemented in a case study. They were transcribed and analyzed using the methodology of innovative moments (Gonçalves et al., 2009). The analysis reveals an increase in the number of innovative moments showing a change in the person's life and it confirms the emergence of resilience processes during DCLDs. These results are discussed in relation to models of resilience and with the role of counselors and psychologists who accompany individuals who have met a layoff.