Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work

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institutions. Teaching clients how to use Holland’s RIASEC hexagon is an impor-

tant intervention in its own right because it gives individuals a schema for orga-

nizing and remembering the facts found and the conclusion drawn from their

exploration (both intended such as systematic information seeking and unin-

tended such as exploratory experiences that occur in classrooms, on playing fields,

and during trips). Once individuals form occupational daydreams and envision

possible selves, they usually wonder if they can realize their aspirations.

Career Confidence The fourth and final dimension of career adaptability is con-

fidence. Self-confidence denotes the anticipation of success in encountering

challenges and overcoming obstacles (Rosenberg, 1989). Career choices require

solving complex problems. It takes confidence to do what is required to master

these prob

lems. The fundamental role of confidence in constructing careers is re-

flected in the extensive scholarship on self-esteem, self-efficacy, and encourage-

ment in theories of vocational development. In career construction theory,

confidence denotes feelings of self-efficacy concerning the individual’s ability to

successfully execute a course of action needed to make and implement suitable ed-

ucational and vocational choices. Career confidence arises from solving problems

encountered in daily activities such as household chores, schoolwork, and hobbies.

Moreover, recognizing that he or she can be useful and productive at these tasks in-

creases feelings of self-acceptance and self-worth. Broader exploratory experiences

reinforce the confidence to try more things. Individuals who have been sheltered or

excluded from certain categories of experience (e.g., math and science) find it diffi-

cult to be confident in approaching those activities and, consequently, will be less

interested in occupations that require skill at those activities. Mistaken beliefs

about social roles, gender, and race often produce internal and external barriers

that inhibit the development of confidence.

A lack of career confidence can result in career inhibition that thwarts actualiz-

ing roles and achieving goals. Career counseling interventions, in general, build

self-confidence through the relationship dimension of counseling. A working al-

liance with a counselor enhances the client’s self-acceptance and self-regard. Ca-

reer inhibition is addressed, in particular, by interventions designed to increase

feelings of confidence (Dinkmeyer & Dreikurs, 1963) and self-efficacy (Betz &

Schifano, 2000) through role modeling, success acknowledgment, encouragement,

anxiety reduction, and problem-solving training. These interventions create a

sense in individuals that they are good enough to deal with the problems posed by

life, teach them to focus on what they are doing more than on how they are doing,

increase the courage to try when the outcome is in doubt, and promote skill at prob-

lem solving. These coping attitudes, beliefs, and competencies strengthen career

confidence and lead directly to engaging and mastering vocational development

tasks, occupational transitions, and personal traumas.

ROFILES OF

AREER

DAPTABILITY

In theory, adolescents should approach the tasks of the exploration stage with a

concern for the future, a sense of control over it, the curiosity to experiment with

possible selves and explore social opportunities, and the confidence to engage in

designing their occupational future and executing plans to make it real. In real-

ity, development along the four dimensions of adaptability progresses at different

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rates, with possible fixations and regressions. Delays within or disequilibrium

among the four developmental lines produces problems in crystallizing career pref-

erences and specifying occupational choices, problems that career counselors diag-

nose as indifference, indecision, unrealism, and inhibition. Moderate disharmony

in the development of the four dimensions of adaptability produces individual dif-

ferences in career choice readiness and explains variant patterns of development.

Strong disharmony produces deviant patterns of development. Accordingly, com-

paring development among the four dimensions is a useful way to assess career

adaptability and to understand the antecedents of vocational decision-making dif-

ficulties and work adjustment problems. More importantly, it provides a counsel-

ing plan with specific goals and associated strategies. For example, if a client shows

indifference and lacks career concern, he or she may benefit from interventions

that prompt anxiety about the future and then address this anxiety by exercises

and interactions that foster planful attitudes, planning competencies, and prepara-

tory behaviors (e.g., see Table 3.2, row 1). In contrast, if a client has a strong sense of

concern and control, yet seems unrealistic or unknowledgeable, he or she may ben-

efit more from interventions that foster career curiosity in the form of inquisitive

attitudes, exploration competencies, and information-seeking behaviors (e.g., see

Table 3.2, row 3).

The schema for assessing career adaptability, as diagramed in Table 3.2,

arranges the four dimensions into a structural model that can be used to recognize

individual differences in the readiness and resources for making and implement-

ing choices. In applying the model to comprehend the career adaptability of an in-

dividual, it is best to use a structured interview (Savickas, 2000). Using the schema

outlined in Table 3.2 as a template through which to hear a client’s career stories

permits a counselor to assess that client’s adaptability and, if indicated, offer the

client a developmental plan to increase adaptive resources and readiness.

While it is best to assess career adaptability by structured interview, it can also

be assessed for purposes of group counseling and career education by instru-

ments such as the Career Maturity Inventory (Crites & Savickas, 1996), which

measures attitudes toward career decision making; the Career Development In-

ventory (Savickas & Hartung, 1996), which measures attitudes toward career

planning and exploration, as well as information about occupations and skill at

matching people to jobs; the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale (Betz &

Taylor, 1994), which measures self-confidence about engaging in the tasks of mak-

ing a career choice; and the Career Beliefs Inventory (Krumboltz & Vosvick,

1996), which surveys conceptions about career construction. Whatever assess-

ment technique is used, the counselor will have some idea of how the client en-

gages vocational development tasks and occupational transitions, a necessary

complement to understanding the client’s vocational personality. The counselor

should next attend to why the client has encountered a writer’s block in author-

ing the next chapter in her or his career story.

LIFE THEMES

The narrative component of career construction theory addresses the subject mat-

ter of work life and focuses on the why of vocational behavior. Career stories re-

veal the themes that individuals use to make meaningful choices and adjust to

work roles. By dealing with the why of a career, along with the what and how,

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reer construction seeks to be comprehensive in its purview. Although the con-

tent and process of careers are both important, studying vocational personality

and career adaptability as separate variables misses the dynamics of the open sys-

tem that cuts across self-organization (i.e., personality) and self-extension (i.e.,

adaptability) to integrate them into a self-defined whole. The essential meaning

of career and the dynamics of its construction are revealed in self-defining stories

about the tasks, transitions, and traumas an individual has faced. In chronicling

the recursive interplay between self and society, career stories explain why indi-

viduals make the choices that they do and the private meaning that guides these

choices. They tell how the self of yesterday became the self of today and will be-

come the self of tomorrow. Thus, career tells the story of an individual’s disposi-

tional continuity and psychosocial change. From these prototypical stories about

work life, counselors attempt to comprehend the motivation and meaning (the

why) that constructs careers.

It is critical that neither the counselor nor the client view the stories as deter-

mining the future; instead, they should view storying as an active attempt at mak-

ing meaning and shaping the future. The stories guide adaptation by evaluating

opportunities and constraints as well as by using vocational personality traits to

address developmental tasks, occupational transitions, and personal traumas. In

telling their stories, clients are constructing a possible future. Clients seem to tell

counselors the stories that they themselves need to hear because, from all their

available stories, they narrate those stories that support current goals and inspire

action. Rather than remembering, individuals reconstruct the past so that prior

events support current choices and lay the groundwork for future moves (Jossel-

son, 2000). This is an instance, not of the present taking lessons from the past, but

of the past taking lessons from the present, reshaping itself to fit current needs.

This narrative truth may differ from historical truth because it fictionalizes the

past. In so doing, it preserves continuity and coherence in the face of change and

allows the person to meet that change with fidelity and flexibility.

Unlike the RIASEC types and adaptability dimensions, career stories fully

contextualize the self in time, place, and role. Career stories express the unique-

ness of an individual in her or his particular context. Furthermore, the separate

career stories told by an individual are unified by integrative themes that arrange

the discrete experiences of work life into a plot. By consciously organizing and

binding together these discrete experiences, a unifying life theme patterns lived

experience with a meaningful coherence and long-term continuity. That pattern

becomes a fundamental and essential way of being because it provides a way for

individuals to see themselves and what is important in the world. Thus, in career

construction theory, pattern is the primary unit of meaning.

DENTIFYING

IFE

HEMES IN

AREER

TORIES

In attempting to discern the pattern while listening to clients’ career stories,

counselors can become disoriented by the numerous particulars of a life. To pre-

vent becoming confused by a client’s complexities and contradictions, counselors

listen not for the facts but for the glue that holds the facts together as they try to

hear the theme or secret that makes a whole of the life. Arranging the seemingly

random actions and incidents reported in career stories into a plot can be done in

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many ways. Career construction theory proposes for this purpose that the coun-

selor listen for the quintessence of the stories a client tells. I approach this task by

assuming that the archetypal theme of career construction involves turning a

personal preoccupation into a public occupation. As I listen to a client narrate his

or her stories, I concentrate on identifying and understanding his or her para-

digm for turning essence into interest, tension into intention, and obsession into

profession.

I prefer the definition of a life theme provided by Csikszentmihalyi and Beattie

(1979): “A life theme consists of a problem or a set of problems which a person

wishes to solve above everything else and the means the person finds to achieve a

solution” (p. 48). For me, the problem is the preoccupation, and the solution, at

least in the work domain, is the occupation. Often, clients’ preoccupations are un-

pleasant, involving difficulty and distress. Yet, some clients’ preoccupations are

pleasant, involving ease and enjoyment. Thus, when I use the word problem, I mean

the content of a preoccupation—whether positive or negative—that individuals

must address in solving themselves. Career construction revolves around turning

a personal problem into a public strength and then even a social contribution. In

counseling for career construction, the essential activity entails articulating the

preoccupation and discussing possible solutions in the form of occupations. This

involves helping a client to construct interests (Kitson, 1942). I believe a counselor

should be more skilled at creating interests than at assessing interests with inven-

tories. Many times counselors need to help clients create interest by showing

them how a few occupations and avocations directly address their preoccupation

and in so doing may resolve their problems. The view that interests originate as

solutions to problems is not new. Early in the history of vocational guidance,

Carter (1940) concluded that interests are “solutions to the problems of growing

up” (p. 187). Interest, in proposing a path from preoccupation to occupation,

strives to maintain an individual’s integrity by charting strategies for survival

and, it is hoped, integrative adaptation and optimal development—the very stuff

of life themes.

Common understanding of life themes abounds in our culture. Consider, for

example, the following four familiar themes: the sickly child who becomes a

champion bodybuilder, the stuttering child who becomes a network news anchor,

the shy child who becomes an actor, and the poor child who grows up to be

wealthy. These well-known themes express cultural scripts that tell how an indi-

vidual moves from weakness to strength, from timidity to confidence, from inhi-

bition to expressiveness, and from poverty to affluence. I have never attempted to

catalogue life themes, because this would defeat the very purpose of appreciating

an individual’s unique story. Nevertheless, at the risk of turning this idiographic

concept into a nomothetic catalogue, curious readers may wish to review the list

of 34 themes identified in a Gallup study of two million people (Buckingham &

Clifton, 2001).

Life themes are also about mattering. Counseling for career construction aims to

help clients understand how their life project matters to themselves and to other

people. In career construction theory, the theme is what matters in the life story. It

consists of what is at stake in that person’s life. On the one hand, the theme matters

to individuals in that it gives meaning and purpose to their work. It makes them

care about what they do. On the other hand, what they do and contribute to society

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matters to other people. The belief that what they do matters to others is important

to self-concept (Marshall, 2001). Recognition from significant others consolidates

identity and heightens the sense of belonging. Josselson (1994) views this mattering

as a relational component of identity—a sense of social meaning and relatedness.

OMPARING

ERSONALITY

YPES TO

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It may be worthwhile to compare life themes to vocational personality types be-

cause their differences may not be self-evident. The essential difference between

the two is that themes focus on uniqueness, whereas types focus on similarity.

For example, RIASEC codes represent an individual’s similarity to ideal proto-

types. A code of RI means that the individual most resembles the Realistic type

and next most resembles the Investigative type. In comparison, career stories

portray individuals’ unique conceptions of their personalities from their own

point of view. The narrative lines are not composed of personality traits; instead,

lines of need, purpose, and intention draw the self-portrait. Themes reveal why

an individual is unique. Thus, objective types focus on what interests and abili-

ties individuals possess, whereas subjective themes focus on why these charac-

teristics matter. While types have remarkable stability, life themes may be

reconstructed to open new avenues of awareness and understanding. Finally, vo-

cational personality theories concentrate on congruence, that is, fitting workers

to work to produce success and satisfaction, whereas life theme theories focus on

mattering, that is, enabling the workers to use work to produce significance and

validation.

Types and themes are complementary perspectives, the objective and subjec-

tive, that should be integrated, along with the third perspective of adaptability, in

comprehensively understanding an individual’s efforts to cooperate with and

contribute to society. While career interventions may be conducted from any one

of these three perspectives, intervention produces better outcomes when all three

perspectives are used together (Savickas, 1996). Multiple perspectives allow a

counselor to view the client more completely and thus be more useful to that

client. The following case study illustrates the advantages of taking, in turn, all

three perspectives on a client’s vocational behavior and career construction.

CASE STUDY

I begin counseling for career construction by interviewing a client using a uni-

form set of questions. The Career Style Interview (Savickas, 1989) is designed to

elicit self-defining stories that allow counselors to identify the style that individ-

uals impose on their characters and to understand the resulting thematic unity.

Data from a Career Style Interview also clearly manifest a client’s vocational per-

sonality type and career adaptability, as I have shown in several brief case studies

(Savickas, 1988, 1995a, 1995b, 1997, 1998). I now present a more complete case

study, first using the results of a Career Style Interview to assess vocational per-

sonality type, career adaptability, and life theme and then describing how I used

this assessment in counseling to help the client narrate a livable career story that

enabled her to make educational and vocational choices and enact roles that were

meaningful to her and mattered to others.

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EETING

LAINE

When I first met Elaine, she was a 20-year-old, full-time college student who said

that she could not decide on a major, although her mother urged her to declare

premed. She lived at home and commuted to campus each day. She guessed she

would major in premed and go on to medical school but she was unsure of this

right now. She reported that she had been to her college counseling center, yet

now feels more undecided after working with a counselor there. She wants me to

help her explore whether medicine is the right choice for her. She has just com-

pleted the fall semester of her sophomore year and in the spring must declare her

major. She sometimes thinks engineering would be good for her, and she took an

engineering class during the fall semester. She thought that maybe chemical engi-

neering would be good, but civil engineering is easier. She has requested informa-

tion from another college that has better integrated computers into its chemical

engineering curriculum. She was attracted by computers and liked the idea that if

she transferred to that college, she could live in a dorm. I asked her the questions

in the Career Style Interview and recorded her responses on the form.

AREER

TYLE

NTERVIEW WITH

LAINE

In response to the first question concerning how I could be useful to her, Elaine

responded that she did not know why she could not choose a major, she needed

help in making a choice, and she wondered whether medicine would be a good

choice for her. Next, I asked Elaine to identify and describe three of her role mod-

els. She stated that Ann of Green Gables has spirit and a temper, set goals and went

after them, did what she wanted, has integrity, and has fun. The heroine in the

book Wrinkle in Time led her friends in a showdown against creatures trying to

take over their minds. She thought of ways to stick together and fight the crea-

tures. Laura, in the book Little House on the Prairie had wild ideas of things to do

and enjoyed competing with and outdoing others. To assess preferred environ-

ments, I asked Elaine about favorite magazines, books, and television shows. She

likes Vog ue because it is about fashion, BusinessWeek because it is about advertising

campaigns, and Details because it is about men’s clothing. Her favorite television

show is Laverne and Shirley because they do things off the norm without getting

into trouble. Her favorite book is The Search of Mary Kay Malloy, which tells the

story of an Irish girl and her voyage to America by herself. In response to ques-

tions about her hobbies and leisure activities, Elaine said that she likes to go to

the movies, shop in thrift stores for fashionable clothes, and talk to people. She

also enjoys cross-stitch sewing while watching television because she feels that

she is not wasting time and can have a finished product. She also likes to sew be-

cause she can make what she wants, not what other people have. Elaine reported

having two favorite sayings. The first, by Curious George, was, “I am curious

about things.” The second was, “Do it well.” By “do it well,” her parents meant

nearly perfectly and they checked it. Do it wrong and you have to redo it until it

is right. When asked about high school subjects, Elaine responded that she liked

math because you learn the right way to do things and to problem solve for your-

self. She hated history and geography because she had to memorize unimportant

facts and dates.

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Nearing the end of the Career Style Interview, I asked Elaine to report three

early recollections, and, after she had done so, I asked her to give each story a

headline or title. The three stories with their headlines were:

1. Little girl annoyed because she must sit still: Going to Disneyland with grand-

parents and uncle and his girlfriend. I was in the back of the camper trying

to sing and dance for my grandmother. She told me to sit down so I would

not get hurt. I got on uncle’s girlfriend’s nerves by trying to talk to her.

Tried to talk but she did not think I should move around at the same time.

2. Playful girl dreads speaking with relatives: I remember a family reunion at

Grandma’s (the other one). I was playing an old corn thing with my cousin.

I did not know who most of the people were. Grandma made me stop play-

ing and said I had to talk to the people because they knew who I was.

Grandma said, “You kids, behave.”

3. Mischievous child has fun at first or dog plan fails: This family that my parents

met in England came to visit. I teased their son. He made fun of the curlers

in my hair. The boy was chasing me all over the yard. So I ran by my dog

where the boy could not get me but he threw a stick and hit me in the eye.

His mother and my mother took me in the bedroom and cleaned my eye.

To complete the Career Style Interview, I asked Elaine to tell me the part of her

life story that is important to her current career problem. She said:

I was always undecided. In the second grade, I went to get new shoes. After I wore

them to school one day, I would take them back and get a different pair. The boy

who sat next to me thought I was rich because I had so many pairs of shoes but it

was because I could not decide.

LAINE

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Career construction theory focuses on stories because it views language as the ef-

ficient means for building careers out of complex social interactions. In those re-

lationships, language and stories are construction tools for making meaning.

Storytelling crystallizes what clients think of themselves. Many clients laugh and

cry while telling their stories because they see their life themes emerge in the

space between client and counselor. It is important that counselors help clients

understand the implications of what they have said in telling their stories. This

means relating the theme to the problems posed in the beginning of the inter-

view. It is also best to use the clients’ most compelling metaphors and the words

that they have used repeatedly. At the same time, constructivist counseling ex-

pands the language that a client has available to make meaning out of experience.

It offers clients the logical language of the RIASEC model as well as the dramatic

language of stories and the symbolic language of poetry. Helping clients to en-

large their vocabulary of self increases their ability to story their experience and

to understand and communicate who they are and what they seek.

Every counselor can read Elaine’s stories from the perspective of his or her fa-

vorite career theory. Herein, I demonstrate my interpretive routine. In particular, I

highlight a few representative scenes in Elaine’s story to illustrate six tricks of the

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trade in counseling for career construction. First, I begin to make sense of Elaine’s

stories by reviewing how she wants to use the counseling experience. Her goals

frame the perspective from which to view her stories. In response to my introduc-

tory question—“How can I be useful to you in constructing your career?”—Elaine

had said that she did not know why she cannot choose a major, she would like help

in making a choice, and she wanted to discuss whether medicine would be a good

fit for her. This gives us two points of reference. She wants the counselor to help

her understand why she cannot choose as well as to move her closer to making a

choice, whether it be medicine or something else. Thus, in reviewing her career

stories, I attend to her experiences with decision making. I am particularly inter-

ested in how decision making relates to her life themes. I also note that in terms of

career adaptability, she may benefit from increasing her sense of career control.

Second, I look for the verbs in her early recollections. I start with the first verb

in the first story, having learned that this is a particularly important form of move-

ment for the client. In Elaine’s first recollection, the first verb is “going.” To me,

this means that she wants to move, to be on the go, and to travel. I then look in the

remaining stories for other evidence to support this idea. I note the phrases “mov-

ing around” and “dancing” in the first recollection, and I find further support

in her favorite book, which tells the story of a girl’s journey to another country.

Other verbs in her early recollections stand out by their repetition. “Playing” and

“singing” seem important to her. She is enthusiastic about life. Also “try” appears

three times in the first recollection, suggesting that she is industrious and persis-

tent in pursuing difficult goals. “Talking” appears in the first two recollections, so

she likes to communicate. And finally, in the first two recollections, adult women

tell her to sit down and stop playing. I start to see the tension in her life between

wanting to be on the go and being told to sit still. There is much more in her sto-

ries, but this is enough to get started. It is important to remember that these mem-

ories are not necessarily reasons for her behavior; she has constructed them to

reflect her current struggle. From the many available stories, each reflecting the

same theme, clients tell those that they themselves need to hear.

Third, I look at the headlines Elaine had composed for each of her three recol-

lections. These headlines are rhetorical compressions that express the gist of her

story. From Elaine’s point of view, she is a “little girl” who is annoyed because

powerful others stop her from enthusiastically pursuing her dreams. They want

her to stay put where they place her, and she dreads talking to them about her

needs. She knows that she can be mischievous and irritate them, yet understands

that this negative plan will fail in the long run. It is worthwhile to read these plot

lines in two ways. On the one hand, they reveal more about the life theme that

will shape her career. On the other hand, they indicate in the here and now the

problem she wants to work on during counseling and what she expects from her

counselor. She wants a counselor to encourage her movement and her gusto for

life, teach her to speak up for herself, and devise a plan that will not fail.

Fourth, I want to understand how Elaine is attempting to solve her problems in

constructing a career and how occupations can help her actively master the prob-

lems she faces. I seek to draw the line from preoccupation to occupation that is

implicit in her stories, and that is the essence of the life theme. To do this, I com-

pare the first early recollection to her role models. The early recollection portrays

the pain and problem while the role models propose a tentative solution and dis-

play ways to pursue it. In Elaine’s case, the first story is about a playful girl being

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told to sit still and do as she is told. This resonates to her current dilemma—sit-

ting still as her mother tells her to major in premed. The sitting still can be her

metaphor for indecision. To see the plan she has in mind, I look to whom she has

chosen as models for self-design because they have solved the very problems that

she herself now faces. How Elaine describes her role models reveals core elements

in her self-concept and articulates goals that she has set for herself. In Elaine’s

stories, the key figures model spirit, enthusiasm, playfulness, goals, competitive-

ness, persistence, temper, fighting wrong-headed authority, and enlisting compa-

triots in these battles. These qualities are reaffirmed in her other stories. She is

not frightened by wild ideas and doing things off the norm as long as they are fun

and do not get her into trouble. She is curious and definitely a problem solver. She

is neat and likes to do things well. She enjoys fashion, but maybe in a conventional

and businesslike way.

Fifth, I profile Elaine’s career adaptability. After reviewing the coping strate-

gies in her stories, I concluded that she is deeply concerned about the future,

shows curiosity about it, and could use a little more confidence in her ability to

make it happen—but this is due more to perfectionistic tendencies than to a lack

of self-esteem. The major deficiency in the profile is the absence of strong career

control. Indecision is her try at wrestling her mind away from powerful others

who want to make it up for her. Ownership of her career is at stake, and she is

ready to fight for it now. She just needs a plan and some encouragement. I start by

trying to help Elaine view her indecision as a strength, not a weakness. It is her

way of fighting powerful creatures who are trying to control her career.

Sixth, I appraise Elaine’s vocational personality. I do this by looking at her sto-

ries through the lens of Holland’s RIASEC hexagon. Looking through the six-sided

lens, I see that she most resembles the Investigative type (a curious problem solver

who likes math and science). She next most resembles the Conventional type (likes

teams, partners, caution, cleanliness, norms). In the middle falls resemblance to the

Social type (talking, playing with others, taking care of other people). I see less re-

semblance to the Artistic and Enterprising types, although liking travel, fashion,

and adventure suggests their presence. These may represent latent potentials that

she will actualize in the future. I see the least resemblance to the Realistic type; ac-

tually, I see none but there certainly must be a little there. The lack of Realistic

characteristics in her career stories seems strange for someone interested in civil

engineering (code IRE); and even medicine has Realistic in its code of ISR.

Having gone through my six-step interpretive routine in a systematic manner, I

then summarize my conclusions and prepare to meet the client by doing two final

things—crafting a success formula and composing a life portrait. I aim to write a

first draft of a success formula that the client and I will edit together until the

client finds it accurate and inspiring. Success formulas are an integral part of Hal-

dane’s (1975) technique for articulating dependable strengths. I recommend his

books and materials highly. To help counselors write success formulas, I devised

handout (Savickas, 1989, p. 312) that lists a set of activities for each of the six

ASEC types. In writing a success formula for Elaine, I selected one phrase each

from the three lists that coincide with the RIASEC types that Elaine most resem-

bles (i.e., ICS). From Investigative, I selected solve problems; from Conventional, I

selected be part of a team; and from Social, I selected help others. The first draft of

her success formula then became: You feel happy and successful when you are a part of

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a team that helps people solve problems. It could just as easily been: You feel happy and

successful when you use logic to provide advice about how to organize things.

I then move from the success formula to a more comprehensive portrait of the

client (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). I try to draw a life portrait that captures

a client’s essential character yet lacks the finishing touches that the client must add

during counseling. I aim for an honest portrayal of a client’s life as a work in prog-

ress, a life that is simultaneously predetermined and unpredictable. The portrait

includes tentative answers to implicit questions such as, “Who am I?” “What is my

quest?” and “How can I grow and flourish?” It also addresses the four questions

listed in column one of Table 3.2. I emphasize and repeat the life theme, affirming

its significance and validity. Then I use the life theme to unite the meaning of the

client’s separate career stories into a narrative structure that integrates contradic-

tory views, baffling behaviors, and inconsistent episodes. Most of all, I illuminate

the secret that makes the client’s life whole. By clarifying what is at stake and the

choices to be made, the life portrait will enhance the client’s ability to decide. After

I have sketched a portrayal that includes a client’s personality type, career adapt-

ability, and life themes, I am ready to engage the client in a conversation about the

what, how, and why of his or her career.

I start by reviewing the client’s response to my opening inquiry about how

counseling might be useful to him or her. Then I present the life portrait. I always

present the portrait in a way that highlights its developmental trajectory, espe-

cially the movement from problem to strength so that clients feel their own move-

ment from tension to intention. In so doing, I act as a storyteller in focusing on

dramatic movements, always talking about where the client is headed and assert-

ing the client’s agency in directing this movement. Occasionally, I pause to act

more like a poet in bringing important details into sharp focus by highlighting

vivid expressions of the self in a narrative moment. This is analogous to pausing

the movie of the client’s life to study a single frame or photograph. These pauses

in the action are used to reconstruct old meanings in a way that creates new

meanings and opens new avenues of movement. I always restate the obvious in

the life portrait in candid language because what is not acknowledged grows big-

ger than it needs to be. As I present a portrait to the client, I remain curious, never

certain. Several times I ask the client if I understand things accurately by inquir-

ing, “What am I missing?” The portrait must be presented as a tentative sketch

and, in the end, the validity of my portrayal of a client is arbitrated by its utility

to that client.

With Elaine, I started our second meeting by asking her if she had any addi-

tional thoughts about her responses during the Career Style Interview or if there

were any things she wished to add or clarify. Although she did not, many clients

do because they continue to think about the questions and conversation in the

hours following the first session. I then reminded her of what she had said in re-

sponse to my inquiry about how I could be useful to her. Elaine had said that she

did not know why she cannot choose a major and she would like help in making a

choice. She also had mentioned that she wanted to discuss whether medicine

would be a good field for her. This gives us three points of reference in viewing

her life portrait: why she cannot choose (i.e., career adaptability), how good a fit is

medicine (i.e., vocational personality type), and how to move toward making a

choice (i.e., life themes).

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