The next decade in career counseling: cocoon maintenance or metamorphosis?

The authors, using a cocoon maintenance or metamorphosis metaphor, articulate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and future vision for career counseling. Major strengths in career counseling include the growth and development of career theory, research, and practice. Weaknesses are identified in terms of career counseling practices that maintain localized career standards. Opportunities exist for the profession to assist clients in redefining their careers on the basis of ownership and life stories. The continued devaluation of career counseling in counselor education programs is seen as a threat. The authors conclude with their vision for the future for the discipline and profession of career counseling.

After reading the task articulated by the editor of this special issue, a first thought was, "How can we possibly capture the essence of an organization that is 90 years old and provide strategies to advance the discipline in a short article?" "The Culturally Encapsulated Counselor" by Wrenn (1962) immediately came to mind, because in a few pages Wrenn created a classic article about change that has value some 40 years later. Wrenn noted that in the process of change, the world becomes increasingly smaller. Yet counselors continue to surround themselves "with a cocoon of pretended reality" (p. 445). Being unable to see outside the walls of our impermeable cocoons is a phenomenon Wrenn called "cocoon maintenance," or "cultural encapsulation" (p. 445).

In constructing our vision by identifying strategies to advance the discipline through a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, we are mindful of our "pretend reality" and "cocoon maintenance." At the same time, we are also mindful of how the chrysalis does not become a beautiful butterfly without undergoing a change process. In fact, the insect must shed many layers to undergo a complete metamorphosis and produce the rich array of diverse colors. Thus, we attempt to advance the field through a progression from cocoon maintenance to "cocoon metamorphosis," as we examine career counseling--yesterday, today, and tomorrow. More specifically, we advance the vision of career counseling for the next 10 years by addressing the questions of (a) strengths: Where is career counseling past and present? (b) weaknesses: What forces are at work as career counselors face the future? (c) opportunities: What can career counselors do to better help clients? (d) threats: What are the specific challenges faced by the profession? and (e) vision: What do we see ahead for career counseling in the next decade?

Career Counseling Strengths--Cocoon Metamorphosis

The strengths of career counseling can be observed through the examination of the 90-year metamorphosis of the discipline. Out of concern for the human condition in society, Frank Parsons and other social reformers decided to attack the problems created by a time of unprecedented change and growing pains. Career counseling began as the vocational guidance movement out of a need for social reform that was spawned by a major technological shift from an agrarian society to an industrial society. DeBell (2001) characterized the period accordingly: "It was a time that ushered in industrialization, urbanization, and immigration--three factors that would shape the world of work in America for the rest of the century" (p. 78).

These technological changes were characterized by population shifts that came about through immigration to the United States by members of White ethnic groups, migration from rural to urban areas by freed slaves, and soldiers returning from World War I. Today, there are many global parallels to the problems of the early twentieth century (DeBell, 2001; Zytowski, 2001). Here in the early twenty-first century, individuals have moved from a postindustrial manufacturing society to the Information Age, maintained by telecommunications and technological gadgets. Over its 90-year history, career counseling has undergone a number of shifts and transitions.

There has been a dedicated cadre of career counseling professionals and a wealth of theories, research, and practice standards that have evolved from each transition. Much of the research has been theory driven-investigating numerous aspects of career behaviors and culminating in the practical application to career counseling. The section, Getting Down to Cases, which began appearing in The Career Development Quarterly in December 1986 under the editorship of David A. Jepsen; The Career Counseling Casebook: A Resource for Practitioners, Students, and Counselor Educators(Niles, Goodman, & Pope, 2002); and Experiential Activities for Teaching Career Counseling Classes for Facilitating Career Groups (Pope & Minor, 2000) are excellent examples of this praxis. There have also been the adoption and codification of career counseling practice standards. The career counseling movement has made enormous strides in its 90-year existence. This growth has been a major source of the field's strength.

Career Counseling Weaknesses--Cocoon Maintenance

Although career counseling is a well-grounded profession, it may be that 90 years later, the greatest weakness is that we, as career professionals, suffer from enclosing ourselves within a cocoon of pretend reality. According to Wrenn (1962), such a reality is based on the notion that the "present is enduring" and that reality is "based upon the past and the known, upon seeing that which is as though it would always be" (p. 445). A belief in an enduring present may limit serving present and future constituents and do little to perpetuate the discipline of career counseling. At this point, we reflect on Super's (1993) admonition that counselors should be ambiverts "who turn either way or to any point on the compass and meet client needs" (p. 135). Thus, as career ambiverts, career counselors must examine the adverse forces that may have an impact on the vision for the future.

Globalization has placed the world at the front doorstep of the career counselor. People live in a culture of global markets, where the old adage "think globally, act locally" no longer applies, because new global markets require that people think and act in both arenas. Absent this new way of thinking, the career counselor may not be equipped to serve the global marketplace. Thus, acting locally may serve to impede the discipline of career counseling in several ways. First, the way that we, as career counselors, conceptualize work and career terminology may not be reflective of thinking from the perspective of both local and global arenas. In our view, we may be limited in our perception because there do not seem to be consistent ways to define career or career counseling terms. Herr (1996b) noted that language was often a problem when terminology was considered to be synonymous or interchangeable. In the literature, working definitions of career terminology are often defined in the context of an article by the author (e.g., Harris-Bowlsbey, 1996; Jepsen & Choudhuri, 2001). Watts (1996) supported the necessity for change by stating, "finding new meanings for career is one of the key tasks in the postindustrial age" (p. 52). This change may begin by examining the terminology of the discipline to establish "new meaning."

A second limitation in the discipline of career counseling that is also related to global markets concerns the concept of work. Work is a universal phenomenon that defines who we are in relationship to society and others on the basis of cultural context. Understanding the many facets of work for an individual is a complex process that is linked to cultural context. In global markets, individuals must develop work-related activities that are indigenous to their cultural context. We are reminded of a story told by a colleague who served in the Peace Corps in a country in Africa. He created a One-Stop Career Center in the local library; however, none of the indigenous people used the center. He learned that in the culture of that African society, work-related problems were not resolved through the Western process of career counseling. Herr (2000) noted "the need to articulate a new theory of work that is, in many nations, not institutionally based but focuses attention on ... elements of the 'new career' concept of self-management" (p. 295). Hall (1996) noted that career was an important aspect of work because "career represents the person's entire life in the work setting" (p. 5). However, he stated that the career as previously known was dead, but he was quick to add that "people will have work lives that unfold over time, offering challenge, growth, and learning" (p. 1).

Career Counseling Opportunities--Breaking Out of the Cocoon

Inevitably, the chrysalis receives a signal that it is time for a change. Change involves twisting, turning, and breaking out of the cocoon that was once thought to be impenetrable. Wrenn (1962) noted that change was a certainty and awesome, given "the rapidity and extensiveness of the changes anticipated" (p. 444). The awesome changes (e.g., changes in the demographics of the U.S. population, further unraveling of the welfare system, "rightsizing," massive technology systems, rags-to-riches millionaires, and the gradual disappearance of the middle class) in all sectors of society in the previous decade have had a major impact on career counseling. Given the rapidity of change in the previous decade, even more drastic occurrences can be expected to influence ideas about work and career during the next decade. Career counselors must take advantage of change and seize the moment by once again advancing the discipline of career counseling.