Integrating perspectives in career development theory and practice. (Articles).

Career Self-Realization

Since Frank Parsons (1909) introduced the concept, the significance of knowing oneself has been recognized as one of the key constructs in vocational psychology. Objectivist and differential explanations look at the personal preferences and capacity as stable personality dispositions and traits. Dispositions, as such, are considered distinguishable and measurable. They are described and conceptualized as stable individual characteristics, for example, personality type (Holland, 1997), ability and aptitude (Dawis, 1996), images of occupations (Gottfredson, 1996), and genetic endowment and special abilities (Mitchell & Krumboltz, 1996).

Psycho-sociological views of career tend to take a broader view of the role of selfhood in the development of an individual's life career. The most influential theory in this area, of course, is Super's (1990) theory of self-concept. According to Super, an individual's self-concept system incorporates a complex of self-aspects, including vocational self-identity (Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996). Following Super's (1990) notion, Gottfredson (1996) delineated the social connotation of self, asserting that self-concept is a combination of subjective self and objective self that reflects one's development in a social environment.

Miller-Tiedeman and Tiedeman (1990) considered an individual's career as a reflection of his or her internal cognitive process and defined this self-awareness as ego development. Social cognitive perspectives consider persons as self-conscious agents who strive for career attainment by examining outcome expectations, establishing personal goals, and possessing and exercising self-efficacy (Betz, 2001; Lent et al., 1996). Although they deviated from many traditional theories in a substantial way, the action theoretical perspective (Young & Valach, 2000) and the contextual explanation of career (Young et al., 1996) have emphasized critical aspects that are closely connected with the notion of self. For example, prospects such as personal meaning making, meaning interpretation, intentionality, and purpose cannot occur without recognizing the role of a person's internal selfhood. This means, obviously, that the integrated cognitive, emotional, social, and tangible self is a key component in the contextual meaning making and action implementation process. To perceive life career as narrative occurrences (Cochran, 1990, 1997), the narrative flow is always interwoven with a narrator's involvement in plots and episodes, reflecting dilemmas, conflicts, hesitations, resolutions, enjoyment, and other analogous psychological experiences that are connected to the narrator's self-awareness.

There is no doubt that career theories address the self construct from very different angles, based on diverse philosophical backgrounds and with varied purposes. Notwithstanding these variances, all theories seem to share at least a portion of the very basic foundation of vocational psychology. That is, a person's internal psychological selfhood plays an important role in his or her life career journey. This reality invites some consideration of theory integration.

One possibility for theory integration is to conceive of career as a process for self-realization. This encourages the incorporation of objectivist notions of self into the constructivist approaches of narrative and contextual meaning making. First, the phenomenological and social dimension of self-concept, as proposed by Super (1990) and Gottfredson (1996), seems to merge naturally with the idea of subjective career in constructivist approaches (Cochran, 1997; Young &Valach, 2000; Young et al., 1996). A key philosophical premise in constructivist approaches is that persons live subjective lives within their social contexts. The interaction between the subjective self and its social dimension yields narrative experiences with meanings. Whether explicitly or implicitly, one's self-perception, self-awareness, and other similar views toward oneself are critical variables in forming the entire picture of the subjective self. Paying attention to one's self-concept is, indeed, a part of the meaning exploration proc ess.

Second, the objective self, that is, the part of the self that is reflected by more stable personal dispositions, characteristics, and special capacities (Dawis, 1996; Holland, 1997; Mitchell & Krumboltz, 1996), may be considered as relevant content in the meaning-making process. As personality types, preferences, and aptitudes are integrated into one's narrative, they do not have to be treated as standardized or static profiles. Instead, they can be seen as part of the information that describes the whole person and part of the experiences that the person has acquired or wants to acquire during the life course. Thus, the information that is based on the profile of the objective self, such as testing results from an interest or personality inventory, may be interpreted with the more active engagement of the subjective self, such as narrative exploration. This scenario should be relevant in reverse order. That is, in focusing on aspects of the objective self, content from subjective exploration (e.g., personal stories of past experiences) may be especially helpful in providing relevant contexts for explaining the more observable and calculable personality traits, dispositions, special abilities or weaknesses.

Third, the agentic self and self-efficacy that are rooted in social cognitive perspectives (Betz, 2001; Lent et al., 1996) share substantial common ground with Cochran's (1997) narrative philosophy of approaching one's life career course. The social cognitive self-aspects can also be viewed as part of the relevant components, particularly in forming goals, purposes, and intentionality, in action theory and the contextual explanation of career (Young & Valach, 2000; Young et al., 1996). In an action theoretical framework, self-efficacy and agentic functioning can be explained as critical variables of the person's individual action system. Individual action is a part of the complex action system of project, joint action, and career; however, the person's self-efficacy expectation and the agentic functioning required to implement this self-efficacy perception are too critical to be ignored. Complicated contextual and relational factors must be considered when one acts in life career ecology. Individual agency an d self-efficacy can never be exercised if their social dimensions and circumstances are missing from the whole spectrum. Yet, this does not diminish the vital role of individual action and personal agency. The cognitive selfhood is one of the essential variables in perceiving the environment, interacting with others, for generating inspiration, framing narrative plots, and, eventually, in contextual meaning making.

The foregoing three alternatives of considering career as a process for self-realization illustrate potential connections between different theoretical perspectives. Theory integration can be attempted in a variety of meaningful ways. This implies an intermingling relationship among the three examples provided. Various concept combinations may be constructed. For example, four constructs, namely, self-concept, personal disposition, self-efficacy, and contextual meaning making, can be combined into a career counseling process that is designed to assist the individual to develop and achieve self-realization. These constructs can be used, for example, in a career counseling environment in which the general helping framework would be the narrative process. Personal dispositions are explored with objective assessment tools as well as subjective reflections and interpretations. Self-concept is highlighted as a major theme through the whole narration. Self-efficacy is clarified not only in its past and present tense s but also in its role in future career projection. The thread that connects all of these self-constructs is the process of intentional and coherent self-exploration for meaning making. As such, integrating constructs from varied theoretical approaches becomes possible. In career counseling intervention, counselors can follow the principle of openness and flexibility as they attempt to build constructive and dynamic bridges between different theoretical concepts and constructs.

Career as a Reflection of Growing Experiences

As previously stated, one of the key constructs in the constructivist framework is to perceive one's life career experiences as a biographical or narrative process (Cochran, 1990, 1997; Collin & Young, 1986, 1992; Savickas, 2000). Taking a macroview of their life course, individuals will find that the narrative form of living is a natural way to view human existence. A life journey tells a total story of a person. Within this full narrative, there are numerous substories, episodes, plots, and scenes. To live means to continuously compose stories, as long as one's life journey continues. This principle is applicable to all aspects of one's life, including the work life and career development. The biographical concept rests on the basic premise that a person's life career experiences provide the resources for narratives to take shape. As these experiences accumulate, new contents yield to an existing story or to the construction of a new story. In this sense, career narrative is always in a constant state of pr ogress. The past and present are organized into plots and episodes, reflecting what has happened and what is happening. These formed narrative contents also become the source material for envisioning and designing the themes for a future narrative. The biographical endeavor to organize a narrative represents a temporal sequence and continuity, so does the narrative itself. Thus, career development is seen as a cycle of narrative evolution.

This evolutionary framework may take an open stance to welcome some theoretical tenets from the more traditional and established camp. Super's (1990) "life career rainbow" and "career developmental tasks" seem to have significant content for a career narrative. Although new explanations may be incorporated to update some of the definitions, Super's notions of life career developmental stages and the roles a person would assume in these stages remain quite relevant. To consider the sociological influences, such as social prestige, intellectual capacity, and gender variables, in this developmental process, Gottfredson's (1996) concepts of circumscription and compromise may be also quite relevant as sources for exploration during the narration. Going through or entering these developmental phases can bring about rich, yet sometimes challenging, situations and events. Likewise, taking on different life career roles may generate both rewarding and conflicting experiences. For example, a successful lawyer may enjoy a sense of accomplishment in her work life, but she may also feel a sense of loss because she does not have enough time to spend with her child so that she can be a more nurturing parent. When these dynamic experiences are shaped and reshaped in narration, they may have a better chance of approaching breadth and depth with regard to personal understanding and awareness.

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