Career Counselling

Constructivist approaches

Mary McMahon

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138910089
• eBook ISBN: 9781317436959
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Counseling in Career Development

Due to the increasing demand for career guidance in recent years, career counsellors have been challenged to modernise their practice. As a response to the rapidly changing world of work, with more diverse client groups and more complex and challenging issues facing career counsellors, the field has moved strongly towards the greater adoption of constructivist approaches. The 2nd edition of this ground breaking book is a forward-looking guide, giving further insight into the constructivist approach for the 21st century by:

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• providing a theoretical background to constructivism;

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• alerting readers to a range of cultural considerations related to constructivist career counselling;

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• outlining a range of constructivist approaches to career counselling;

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• providing examples of practical applications of the constructivist approaches presented in the book; and

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• assisting career counsellor educators, practitioners and students understand and implement constructivist approaches into their work.

With contributions from an internationally recognised panel of authors from ten different countries, Career Counselling: Constructivist Approaches treats career as a holistic concept in which work and personal life are inseparably intertwined, and individuals as experts in their own lives and in actively constructing their careers. Structured into four logical sections, this 2nd edition attests to the ongoing influence of constructivism internationally and the continued development and refinement of constructivist approaches to career counselling.

Career Counselling: Constructivist Approaches is essential reading for career counsellor educators, practitioners, researchers and students who want a refreshing insight into constructivist career counselling.

Part I

Constructivism – an overview

Chapter 1

Constructivism

What does it mean for career counselling?

Wendy Patton and Mary McMahon

It is 30 years since the seminal work of Collin and Young (1986), and their very early articulation of the need for vocational psychology to embrace a contextualist worldview. In 2012, following a search of abstracts listed in the PsychInfo database from 1986 until 2011 with narrative or story and career development as search terms, McIlveen reported a doubling of articles for each five-year period within all classification codes, and a continuing strong rise in the codes within a career development classification. It is timely, then, that this book is updated to this second edition. This first chapter will discuss the complex worldview underpinning of constructivism, and describe the theoretical fields from which its core components have been derived. The constructs which guide constructivism in career counselling will be outlined.

Underpinning worldview

A worldview has been described by Lyddon (1989) as serving the role of organising day-to-day experiential data. Pepper (1942) identified four competing worldview root metaphors: mechanism, formism, organicism and contextualism. Mechanism is a perspective which attempts to explain phenomena in mechanical terms that suggest we reason in direct linear routes from the general to the particular and vice versa, and that we focus on cause and effect. Formism is the process of forming phenomena into explainable structures. The organismic worldview sees human development as an orderly maturational unfolding process and is the basis of stage-based models in developmental psychology, notably the work of Super (1990) and Gottfredson (2002) in vocational psychology. Problems in the developmental process are believed to be related to the individual. Collin and Young (1986) noted that ‘Career theories have so far been largely informed by the root metaphor of either organicism and/or mechanism’ (p. 843).

Contextualism is increasingly being embedded in a number of fields in the social sciences – for example, career psychology (e.g. Collin and Young, 1986; Savickas, 2013; Valach and Young, 2009; Vondracek et al., 1986) and counselling psychology (e.g. Steenbarger, 1991). A contextual worldview focuses on the world simply as ‘events’ in a unique historical context. These events occur ‘out there’; however, how they are viewed is linked to the perspective of each individual. Moreover, the contextualist worldview does not conceive development as maturational and unfolding in stages; rather, development is viewed as an ongoing process of interaction between the person and the environment. Within this process, random or chance events contribute to an open-ended unpredictable state of being. An outcome of these elements of the contextualist worldview is an acknowledgement of the active nature of the individual as a self-building and self-renewing ‘self-organising system’ (Ford and Ford, 1987), as opposed to a passive organism at the whim of maturational and developmental stages and/or environmental forces.

Within the contextualist worldview, career practice focuses on individuals interacting with and within their social and environmental contexts. Career development is not viewed as an intra-individual developmental process. The contextualist worldview is reflected in constructivist epistemology as opposed to the traditional objectivist or positivist epistemology. To explain these two positions, positivists emphasise rationality based on an objective value-free knowledge: objectivity over subjectivity, facts over feelings. Constructivists argue against the possibility of absolute truth; however, to say that the constructivist approach is the opposite would be to oversimplify. Constructivism is directly derived from the contextualist worldview in that the ‘reality’ of world events is seen as constructed from the inside out by the individual (that is, through the individual’s own thinking and processing). These constructions are based on individual cognitions in relation with perspectives formed from person–environment interactions.

As such, the constructivist perspective views the person as an open system, constantly interacting with the environment, seeking stability through ongoing change. The emphasis is on the process, not on a specific outcome; there is no completion of a stage and arrival at the next stage as in stage-based views of human development. Mahoney and Lyddon (1988) emphasised the change and stability notion as follows: ‘Embedded with self-change is self-stability – we are all changing all the time and simultaneously remaining the same’ (p. 209).

While there are significant commonalities between constructivism and social constructionism (Young and Collin, 2004), the increasing focus on this epistemology in career theories and in career practice, as evidenced by a monograph devoted to social constructionism in vocational psychology (McIlveen and Schultheiss, 2012), warrants a focused discussion. Indeed, the second edition of the current text is evidence of the growing relevance of constructivism in vocational psychology and, in particular, career counselling. Young and Collin (2004) distinguished the two epistemologies as follows: constructivism assumes the individual mind as the basis for the construction of knowledge, while the construction of knowledge is viewed as being on the basis of social processes for social constructionism. Similarly, Guichard (2009) distinguished these perspectives by referring to them as psychological constructivism and social constructionism. Young and Popadiuk (2012) commented that ‘At one level it appears to be a matter of emphasis because for both the constructivists and the social constructionists individual and social processes are important’ (p. 10) and identified five approaches to career development derived from constructivist/social constructionist epistemologies, specifically: narrative, relational, systems theory, cultural and contextual action theory, most of which are considered in this book.

A number of career theory formulations have been derived from constructivism, including the Systems Theory Framework (Patton and McMahon, 2014) and the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT, Lent, 2013). In addition, Savickas (2013) has outlined his career construction theory which addressed ‘how the career world is made through personal constructivism and social constructionism’ (Savickas, 2005, p. 43). More recently these influences have been reflected in new paradigms such as life designing (Savickas et al., 2009), self-constructing (Guichard, 2009) and other approaches described later in this book.

Constructivism in career counselling

Constructivist approaches are more established in psychology and in personal counselling, and have been influential in career counselling comparatively recently. Nevertheless, they have changed the view that career counselling is a simplistic process. Two decades ago, Granvold (1996) claimed that constructivism represents ‘a formidable challenge to the assumptions about reality, knowledge, and causality’ (p. 345) held by adherents of traditional positivist approaches to career counselling. Evident in career counselling as an either/or tension, this challenge was described by Sampson (2009) as an ‘unnecessary divorce’ (p. 91) between what Hartung (2007, p. 103) referred to as ‘two seemingly irreconcilable viewpoints’. Sampson advocated a both/and perspective that appreciates the contributions and potential of the two viewpoints. Career construction theory is an example of rapprochement between the two viewpoints because of its foundation in both (ibid.) as is the Integrative Structured Interview process that integrates quantitative career assessment into a storied approach to career counselling (McMahon and Watson, 2012b).

This chapter will now discuss the influence of constructivism in relation to the counselling relationship, the counselling process, including the importance of language and emotion and the role of narrative, and career assessment.

The counselling relationship

For over two decades, constructivist approaches to career counselling have emphasised that a quality client–counsellor relationship is essential, and that characteristics such as acceptance, understanding, trust and caring are critical (Granvold, 1996). Rogers’ (1951) three necessary conditions for counselling – genuineness, unconditional positive regard and empathic understanding – remain important (Amundson, 2009), as does a ‘mattering’ (Schlossberg et al., 1989) climate where clients feel listened to and the career counsellor genuinely cares about them.

Operationalising such a relationship warrants consideration, especially when, traditionally, career counsellors have been seen as experts in the counsellor–client relationship. Fundamental to constructivist approaches is that human knowing is proactive and that individuals actively participate in the creation of their own reality; the career counselling relationship should involve engagement, interaction and encouragement (Savickas, 2011). Clients are encouraged to take active roles more indicative of a ‘working partnership’ in which both ‘helper and help-seeker’ (Peavy, 2004, p. 20) collaborate: ‘The counselling relationship is not that of one-who-knows and one-who-does-not-know but rather a relationship of negotiation and co-participation’ (ibid.). In such relationships, clients are expected and encouraged to tell career stories and the role of career counsellor is different from that of expert and less directive. Constructivist career counsellors are more likely to facilitate a process of exploration of career stories and restructuring, rather than ‘fix’ a presenting issue; they collaborate with clients to construct and reconstruct meaning in the client’s life through processes such as the telling of stories, information sharing, interpretation, supportiveness, encouragement, structuring and challenge (Granvold, 1996; McMahon and Watson, 2012a, b, 2013; Savickas, 2011).

The career counselling process: the nature and role of language and emotion

The telling of stories is facilitated through language and its power in constructing meaning is fundamental to constructivism. Words enable individuals to think and make meaning of their experience. Through language, individuals construct self (Savickas, 2011). Because language constructs our reality and the meaning we make of the world (Berg and De Shazer, 1993) it forms the basis of career counselling interactions: ‘Meaning is arrived at through negotiation within a specific context, for example the therapeutic context’ (p. 7). Clients may understand their behaviour in one way, but, through the career counselling discourse, a new meaning or multiple meanings may be constructed which enables them to understand themselves differently, and in turn act differently. Constructivist career counselling becomes a therapeutic conversation in which the stories told by clients are emphasised and the counsellor and the client join as co-constructors of a new reality.

Constructivist career counselling emphasises factors that are not as evident in trait and factor approaches such as the three main tasks for counsellors proposed by Peavy (1998), specifically:

1. to enter into sensible and trustworthy communication with the other;

2. to develop a mutual understanding of the particular difficulty which the other faces; and

3. to plan and construct activity projects which are designed to:

i. increase self-responsibility and personal control;

ii. increase the other’s meaningful participation in social life; and

iii. help the other choose and move toward preferred futures. (p. 50)

Reflected in Peavy’s tasks and also in the goals of career counselling offered by other authors (e.g. Campbell and Ungar, 2004a, b; Peavy, 1998, 2004; Savickas, 2011) is greater emphasis on the role of clients as active agents in planning and implementing their future stories. The client role has been summed up by Campbell and Ungar (2004a, b) as knowing what they want, knowing what they have, knowing what they hear, knowing what constrains them, mapping their preferred story, growing into their story and growing out of their story.

Consistent with all constructivist approaches to career counselling, the dimensions of relationship, agency and meaning-making are central. Peavy (1992) added a fourth dimension of negotiation, and framed all four dimensions as questions to guide career counsellors:

1. How can I form a cooperative alliance with this client? (Relationship factor)

2. How can I encourage the self-helpfulness of this client? (Agency factor)

3. How can I help this client to elaborate and evaluate his or her construc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Introducing the authors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART 1 Constructivism – an overview
• PART 2 Constructivism, culture and career counselling
• PART 3 Constructivist approaches to career counselling
• PART 4 Constructivist career assessment
• Index