Career counseling for human development: an international perspective. (Articles).

It is by no means easy to recognize the origin of this identity crisis. Nevertheless, a degree of consensus is emerging regarding the hypothesis of a major role of globalization of the economy, work, information, and certain cultural products. "Identity crystallizations" can be interpreted as attempts to maintain a positive self-image in local contexts where nothing now seems to guarantee such individual recognition and self-realization (Giddens, 1991; Sandel, 1998; Sennett, 1998). These crystallizations are the "turning in on oneself" of people trying to construct themselves in former identity frames (i.e., former self-concepts; Guichard, 2001a) in a world context that does not offer them any identity or moral model.

The Core Question of Counseling

It seems that career practitioners and career theorists are failing to recognize the importance of these crises, as well as their current and future consequences. The question at the core of current career practices and research is "how is it possible for everyone to fully achieve his or her own potential?" As already pointed out, we now envision that each individual must find (with the help of a counselor) his or her own answer to the following question that corresponds to an individualist model of career interventions: I-low can individuals be helped to determine what they want to be and how to achieve it? Obviously, it has by no means been ruled out that a given individual might feel that the best route to his or her self-achievement is through participation in tiny activist groups espousing a nihilist ideology.

Therefore, career practitioners and theoreticians cannot avoid taking into consideration the "good" and the "common good." This might lead to placing concern for development of the rest of humanity at the core of career counseling. The basic principle would be that human realization of self, as targeted by career counseling, is not possible without the development of others. The fundamental question of counseling would no longer be centered around helping people achieve their own potential as independent individuals, but rather by helping people achieve their own humanity, through collectively helping others achieve their own humanity, each in his or her own way. "To achieve their own humanity" means to develop qualities that can be seen in each culture as universal human qualities (e.g., search for justice, search for truth, openness to others). From both perspectives, career counseling practices focus on individuals. However, in the first one, the end is the achievement of an individual conceived as isolate d, whereas in the second, the end is the development of the humanity in everyone and of humanity as a whole. This new career counseling perspective would be governed by the rule of being based on values that can be considered as "universal" principles for action, values such as allowing everyone to develop, in his or her own way, fully universal human features.

This quest for universally acceptable principles on which career interventions could be founded would certainly require bringing about change in the expectations of some individuals that, in their crude formulation, cannot be universalized. This applies, for example, to the expectation that "I want to achieve my full potential." Such a desire might imply condoning the destruction of everything (including others) seen as an obstacle to such an end.

It should be stressed that this search for universal principles does not have the consequence of proposing a sort of abstract model of humanity. The aim is not to deny particular identity forms, but very much the contrary. The aim is to broaden the recognition of the humanity of others beyond ethnic, cultural, religious, social, and sex differences. This clearly implies the concept of career interventions intended to call into question or challenge any "identity confinement" of individuals that might lead them to reject, as not human, any identity form not matching their subjective identity frames (Guichard, 2001a; Guichard & Huteau, 2001).

This proposal, aimed at providing a universal moral grounding, will have inevitable consequences for career intervention in terms of the concrete activities of career counselors. For example, if it emerges that some current forms of production organization do not engender personal development of people, but rather their actual suffering at work, conclusions should be drawn regarding career education programs. It could be imagined, for example, that these programs would be based on considerations of what human work is and that their objective would be to prepare youngsters to claim this human dimension of work for themselves and for others.

References

Alcool, tabac, dopage, au travail [Alcohol, tobacco, and doping at work]. (2001, July). Sante et Travail, 36.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (M. Holquist, Ed., C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Ballion, R. (1982). Les consommateurs d'ecole. Paris: Editions Stock.

Becker, H. S. (1973). Outsiders. London: The Free Press of Glencoe, Macmillan.

Blustein, D. (2001). Extending the reach of vocational psychology: Toward an inclusive and integrative psychology of working. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 59, 171-182.

Buhrer, J. C. (2001, June 6). Le bureau international du travail denonce le deficit d'emplois "decents" dans le monde. Le Monde, p. 4.

Clot, Y. (1999). La fonction psychologique du travail. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

De Calan, D. (1997). Preparer les jeunes la flexibilite. In S. Kahn (Ed.), L'orientation face aux mutations du travail (pp. 205-215). Paris: La Decouverte & Syros/Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie.

de Gaulejac, V. (1987). La nevrose de classe. Trajectoire sociale et conflits d'identite. Paris: Hommes et Groupes Editeurs.

Dejours, Ch. (1998). Souffrance en France. La banalisation de l'injustice sociale. Paris: Editions du Seuil.

Demunter, P. (1990). L'action collective de formation de Sallaumines. Les Cahiers d'etudes du C.U.E.E.P., 15, 1-128.

Dorais, M. (2001). Mort ou fif; la face cache du suicide ches les garcons. Montreal, Canada: vlb editeur.

Dubar, C. (1979). Les retombees culturelles d'une action collective de formation. Education permanente, 48, 73-86.

Dubar, C. (2000). La crise des identites: l'Interpretation d'une mutation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Dumora, B. (1990). La dynamique vocationnelle chez l'adolescent de college: Continuite et ruptures. L'Orientation Scolaire et Professionnelle, 19, 111-127.

Egan, G. (1998). The skilled helper: A problem management approach to helping (6th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Erikson, E. (1959). Identity and the life cycle. New York: International Universities Press.

Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: Norton.

Farr, R. M., & Moscovici, S. (Eds.). (1984). Social representations. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Forner, Y., & Vouillot, F. (1995). L'education des choix en zone prioritaire: Quels effets? L'Orientation Scolaire et Professionnelle, 24, 371-386.

Foucault, M. (1986). The history of sexuality: Vol. 3. The care of the self New York: Random House.

Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self. In P. H. Hutton, H. Gutman, & L. H. Martin (Eds.), Technologies of the self A seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 16-49). Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.

Friedmann, G. (1964). Le travail en miettes. Paris: Gallimard.

Gergen, K. (1991). The saturated self Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: HarperCollins, Basic Books.

Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

Ginzberg, E., Ginsburg, S., Axelrad, S., & Herma, J. (1951). Occupational choice: Au approach to a general theory. New York: Columbia University Press.

Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A developmental theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling Psychology Monograph, 28, 545-5 79.

Guichard, J. (2001a). Adolescents' scholastic fields, identity frames, and future projects. In J. E. Nurmi (Ed.), Navigating through adolescence: European perspectives (pp. 275- 302). New York: Garland.

Guichard, J. (2001b). A century of career education: Review and perspective. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 1, 155-176.

Guichard, J. (2001c). The relationship between contexts, finalities, theory and innovative practice in career guidance and counselling. Proceedings of the first international conference of E.K.E.P: Trends in counselling and vocational guidance on the eve of the twenty-first century (pp. 56-71). Athens, Greece: The Greek National Center for Vocational Orientation.

Guichard, J., & Huteau, H. (2001). Psychologie de Porientation. Paris: Dunod.

Harmon, L. W., Hansen, J. I. C., Borgen, F. H., & Hammer, A. L. (1994). Strong Interest Inventory: Applications and technical guide. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Hayrynen, Y. P. (1995). Le concept de soi: Un bien personnel, une norme ou une entite legitime? L'Orientation Scolaire et Professionnelle, 24, 5-17.

Hirigoyen, M. F. (2001). Malaise dans le travail. Harcelement moral: Demeler la vrai du faux. Paris: Syros.

Holland, J. L. (1966). The psychology of vocational choice: A theory of personality types and model environments. Waltham, MA: Blaisdel.

Holland, J. L. (1992). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (1999). The self we live by: Narrative identity in a postmodern world. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates