| Abstract: | Helping students be prepared for an uncertain future is difficult. Generally speaking, we counselors are least helpful in preparing students for unhappy eventualities: academic failure (failing an exam or flunking out), vocational failure (unemployment, change of career direction), social failure (rejection, loss, loneliness), or even unhappiness itself. If unprepared for, such future eventualities can be a source of present anxiety and fear-motivated, over-protective life-styles or of defensive denial and unrealistic hopes. As helpers, we may collude with those who ignore or deny and offer the anxious a kind of positive thinking that again fails to prepare them for the worst. In contrast, some negative thinking or contingency planning for otherwise fearful possibilities may help to undercut anxiety, restore motivation to move forward and take risks, shift attention from future-oriented coping to living creatively in the present, clarify priorities and values for life planning, and generally expand behavioral freedom and flexibility. This article emphasizes the use of constructive negative thinking in preparing students for life both in and beyond the classroom or the ivory tower. |
