Savickas+Article

=**Constructivist Counseling for Career Indecision**= - Constructivist counselors view indecision as clients' **subjective** attempts to **give** **meaning** to crisis points in their lives - Career counseling as a process of articulating a client's **life** **theme**

__Indecision as an objective phenomenon__
-Parsons (1909/1967) scientized vocational guidance by making it an objective enterprise, legitimizing it for 20th century -Epistemologic perspective of science (legitimized by positivists) seeks to extract knowledge from reality and validate it against theory; positivist perspective on indecision evolved in 3 phases: 1. Dichotomy 2. Unidimensional continuum 3. Multidimensional concept

**1. Indecision as a Dichotomy**
-Parsons advised counselors to classify clients into 2 main categories: -Slaney (1988) categorized the career indecision research as simplistic because it relied exclusively on decided-undecided dichotomy -Studies prompted to identify academic, personality, and biographical differences between decided and undecided students; showed undecided students as less accomplished and mature - Slanely argued this conclusion was empirically unsupported - Construction of diagnostic schemes that identified causes of immaturity: intrapersonal anxiety, interpersonal conflict, cultural differences, lack of skill, limited self-knowledge, etc.
 * Those who have well developed aptitudes and interests and practical basis for conclusion of choice of vocation (decided)
 * Those who have little experience so that there is no basis yet for wise decision (undecided)
 * -Implicit in the research was assumption that indecision reflected a personality problem or defect**

**2. Indecision as a Unidimensional Continuum**
-Mid 1970s researchers stopped defining indecision as dichotomous state and views it as unidimensional continuum that ranged from undecided to decided -Holland and Osipow popularized the process view of decidedness with scales that indicate position on continuum
 * The Vocational Decision-Making Difficulties Scale (Holland, Gottfredson, & Nefziger, 1973)
 * Career Decision Scale (Osipow, Carney. Winer, Yanico, & Koschier, 1976)

**3. Indecision as a Multidimensional Concept**
-Instead of viewing undecided students as homogeneous group, view undecided students as heterogeneous subgroups -Multidimensional scales to distinguish between subgroups -Second generation scales to measure multiple dimensions of indecision and identify subgroups to assign different interventions:
 * My Vocational Situation (Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980)
 * Commitment to Career Choices (Blustein, Ellis, & Devenis, 1989)
 * Career Decision Profile (Jones, 1989)
 * Career Factors Inventory (Chartrand, Robbins, Morrill, & Broggs, 1990)

-Viewing decision from positivist perspective helps counselors understand it but also objectifies and decontextualizes it excluding individual's subjective experience -Consructivist perspective focuses on the person who in undecided, not the indecision itself

**Indecision as a subjective experience**
-Constructivist view career indecision as a sign of transformation in progress (Cochran, 1991) -Normal experience when people re about to lose their place; transform new identity -This pause doesn't stop all movement, however a stall or stop would be diagnosed as **depression** -Movement wavers, movement toward meaning; during hesitation clients review their lives and focus awareness to grasp a theme, **construct the whole that will clarify the parts** - Counselors help clients to resolve career indecision by clarifying life themes and discussing next steps in achieving goals

**Constructivist Counseling for Career Indecision: Savickas moved away from the objective to the subjective perspective.**
- (Savickas, 1989) 5 steps: 1. Counselor collects client's stories hat reveal client's theme 2. Counselor narrates theme to client 3. Client and counselor discuss meaning o the current indecision by relating it to the life theme 4. Client and counselor extend theme into the future by naming interests and occupations that address the preoccupation and the life theme 5. Client and Counselor rehearse behavioral skills needed o specify and implement a career choice

- (Savickas, 1989)
 * Steps in Life Theme Counseling Model**
 * The counselor meets the client and learns the details of the indecision and proceeds to elicit stories that reveal the clients life theme.
 * life theme is like plot in literature,
 * life stories draw on interaction between linear incidents (life events) that make the plot (plan of action) and the timeless, motionless theme makes the underlying themes that make life.
 * counselor is seeking two types of stories
 * 1. stories that reveal clients preoccupation or central life concern
 * 2. stories that reveal the plot or what they plan to do with preoccupation
 * counselor then connects themes back to life event
 * In deciding on stories to elicit, the counselor may rely on literacy and go with what makes a good story
 * stories achieve meaning by going against the norm (individual differences)
 * ask about family who raised the client
 * counselors listen for trouble, imbalance, or deviation
 * listen for the problem which organizes clients life
 * After stories about preoccupation, counselors seek stories about projects about life, or what they plan to do with preoccupation
 * listen to clients try to become more whole; complete stories by reaching a subjectively defined final goal.
 * thèse stores in which clients address how they plan to better address the preoccupation
 * most important stories may reflect those about heros
 * identity narrative provides the goal of the story and explain how clients plan to seek completion through closing the gap between actual experience and what they want to experience.
 * tell counselors how clients digest their experiences, remember events leading to crystallization of self, and rehearse ways of coping with life.
 * In connecting the preoccupation to the project, counselors usually recognize both the life and the actors identity.
 * time to narrate life theme to client and collaborate on editing it.
 * once the theme has been clarified, client and counselor are ready to collaborate in using the theme to understand and resolve the career indecision.
 * requires the counselor address directly the current indecision that clients use to hesitate before stepping into the future.
 * may use the following prompting questions to help get client to speak openly and clearly about what they want next out of life.
 * Under what circumstances was your indecision recognized
 * How does it feel to be undecided?
 * After wavering, in the movement clients are usually ready to say what they have been hesitating about
 * counselors offer encouragement that clients need to authorize their story; to give voice to their ambition, that which clients hesitate to state
 * After clients are well prepared to extend imaginative plot lines into the future.

Savickas, M. (1995). Constructivist counseling for career indecision. The Career Development Quarterly, 43(4), 363-373.

Case Study using Savickas' Career Construction Interview: The study I found is one in which a researcher applies Savickas' theory to a client. It really clarified and demonstrated the effect of the theory, especially the benefit to a proper interview. While I doubt we will have time to perform this in such detail as school counselors, I do think that it was a helpful article.