Attending to Clients' Psychological Needs During Career Construction Counseling

Title

Attending to Clients' Psychological Needs During Career Construction Counseling

Creator

Sampaio C; Cardoso P; Rossier J; Savickas ML

Publisher

Career Development Quarterly

Date

2021
2021-06-08

Description

The counselor (the first author) was a Brazilian White woman, holding a PhD in psychology and career counseling, with more than 10 years of experience as a career counselor and supervisor of graduate and undergraduate psychology students at a university career development and counseling center. The client, Barbara (a pseudonym), was a 28-year-old Brazilian Black woman who was feeling dissatisfied with her job as an administrative assistant. She was taking a technical course in administration that was also not satisfying. Barbara sought career counseling to determine how she could make a transition to achieve a more satisfying career and life. She was worried about being almost 30 years old and not feeling that she had a direction in life.

Subject

Attending to clients' psychological needs during career counseling merits more attention in career theory and practice. We describe how the elaboration of clients' needs during career construction counseling supports clients' problem formulation. After reviewing the literature on the psychology of needs, we present and illustrate an intervention strategy with a case example. Counseling vignettes from the initial counseling task of problem formulation illustrate how to facilitate clients' narrative symbolization of their emotional experiences and associated needs. We explain how this strategy contributes to deepening clients' understanding of their problems and facilitates both the rewriting of a career narrative and the construction of new career plans. Analysis of the possibilities and limits of this practice merits attention in career counseling process research.

Pages

96-133

Issue

2

Volume

69

NEOMED College

NEOMED College of Medicine

NEOMED Department

Department of Family & Community Medicine

Update Year & Number

Jan to Aug 2021 List

Citation

Sampaio C; Cardoso P; Rossier J; Savickas ML, “Attending to Clients' Psychological Needs During Career Construction Counseling,” NEOMED Bibliography Database, accessed March 28, 2024, https://neomed.omeka.net/items/show/11796.