Essential Tiedeman: anchoring the North Star for human development.

Tiedeman was a brilliant icon in counseling and psychology. He was and is the North Star to emulate because he could dance with theory, practice, and life.

In 1970, invoking the practice side of his decision-making theory, Tiedeman accepted a consultation at the Appalachia Education Laboratory, in Charleston, West Virginia, where we met. He would later say, "That visit changed my professional and personal world forever." At that time, Tiedeman's eminence had already been established, and he was casting around for new ways to frame his thought.

Tiedeman's thought provided a mirror for his peers to see more clearly their own thought. Many claimed he was difficult to understand. Part of that was his choice of language and part of it came from the worldview (Newtonian/Cartesian) of many of his readers. We now know from the new science that one cannot observe anything without changing it. When perception is owned, the language becomes "Tell me more." rather than "It is not clear." Seen from a development perspective, one person's clarity is another person's confusion (Loevinger, 1976). Nevertheless, Tiedeman was held in high esteem in that almost everyone respected his thinking.

This article honors Tiedeman by letting him speak about the ideas closest to his heart, starting with (a) his professional credo, then moving to (b) his Harvard Studies in Career Development, (c) his declaration in 1983 about career, (d) his thoughts about statistics of vocational guidance, and (e) his recognition of the science necessary for personal development.

Tiedeman's Professional Credo

I am passionate about three professional matters based upon half a

century's service in guidance. First, guidance is the potential

catalyst for personal, social, and universal growth and development.

Second, present guidance theory (with the exception of Miller-

Tiedeman's process theory, 1988) is too narrow, too shallow, and too

thoroughly ignored to meet the world's momentary crises. It takes a

world unafraid of universe-responsible creativity. Third, work on a

general theory of career development, already started by Miller-

Tiedeman (1988, 1989), should be given first priority on a universe

agenda. Miller-Tiedeman chose a scientific world view for her

process theory. She learned from several physicists including Capra

(1975, 1982), Prigogine (1980), and Bohm (1980). Since that time

other physicists joined into study of the evolving Quantum paradigm

and its parallelism with life and consciousness paradigms. Read

across disciplines to locate these sources, as they will provide

much insight on "Quantum's new and dazzling social vision."

(Tiedeman, 1996, p. 115)

Tiedeman believed that the life-as-process theory/philosophy (Miller-Tiedeman, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1999) would give the individual the freedom to pursue his or her own development creatively because it acknowledges that the whole organizes the parts, which supports the individual in responding to his or her "whole," not something proscribed by another. This becomes possible because it was constructed from principles in the new science (Bohm, 1980; Capra, 1982; Hawking, 1988; Prigogine, 1980). Einstein, on more than one occasion, suggested that one cannot solve a problem on a level at which it was created. In other words, one cannot get to process through the lens of Newtonian/Cartesian science, the basis of traditional career. It is just not robust enough. With the exception of his statistical writing, Tiedeman believed that a universe agenda ought to support self-defined growth. The Information System for Vocational Decisions (Tiedeman, 1968) was a tool pointed in that direction, and the Internet delivered the dream: Personal information summarized at every turn along with the opportunity for unlimited growth. Tiedeman (1996) was thrilled with its potential for fulfilling what he called the "new and dazzling social vision" (p. 115).

Harvard Studies in Career Development

The journey that led to Tiedeman's half-century insight started in the 1950s. Influenced by both Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad, and Herma (1951) and Super (1957), Tiedeman launched a research series in career development as part of the training program in guidance at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The first series dealt with most aspects of the how and why of adolescent occupational choice driven by analytic method. The second series made the shift from analytic method to theory construction, and the third series focused on the creation of an Information System for Vocational Decisions, intending to allow students to interact with personally chosen facts/data to increase awareness of (a) the formed inside concept satisfying the reason for inquiry and (b) awareness of developmentally becoming more conscious of self-formed understanding. Tiedeman's care to not overwhelm the inquirer regarding the programmers' intent represents an early effort, and perhaps the first in computer-involved vocational guidance, to place the individual's notions in primary position (Miller-Tiedeman & Tiedeman, 1999). Thus, Tiedeman's first theory and practice theme involves protecting personal perception in an effort to increase individual personal development.

The 1983 Assembly to Advance Career

Tiedeman convened the assembly to provide a platform for introducing a new career premise that skipped over career development literature and its science (Miller-Tiedeman, 1982). At that assembly, he said,

Practically everything now done in the presumed education of career

is based on a past premise which is dead. For instance, by

predicting what is "good" for a person, in terms of what has

seemingly worked for their predecessors, we effectively project the

life of this person's career through the eyes of those long dead

persons who preceded them. "Do as I did. Don't do what you

intuitively know to be the better in the moment." The 1983 ASSEMBLY

TO ADVANCE CAREER is conceived and executed from the living,

breathing, premise of life. (Tiedeman & Lynch, 1983, p. 1)

Thus, Tiedeman's second theory and practice theme involves supporting an idea capable of liberating the perception, thereby freeing it for increased development.

Statistics of Vocational Guidance

Tiedeman grew out of his statistician phase because it did not forward his vision for self-initiating, self-correcting, and self-directing behavior. In looking back, he said,

Statisticians have labored to help those in the helping professions

put a science beneath their counseling purpose. This labor started

early in the twentieth century almost from the time of Frank

Parsons. But statisticians have been unable to escape the one koan

that all existential constructionists face: STATISTICS AND GUIDANCE

ARE LOGICALLY INCOMPATIBLE. You have to have one without the other

because you cannot capture an individual life in a statistic, only

moments in time, which have little bearing on the accumulated whole.

Additionally, statistics of vocational guidance ordinarily produce

probabilities, usually for today's events, not tomorrow's

necessities. The statistics of vocational guidance take those that

believe them into the future looking backwards.

Finally, statistics most likely found its way into psychology and

counseling in the universities because it sounded like good hard

science and the need to look intelligent and keep up with other

disciplines played no small part in the furrow statistics plowed in

a field devoted to helping human beings, most of whom know or care

little about statistics. (Miller-Tiedeman & Tiedeman, 1999, p. 40)

Thus, Tiedeman's third theory and practice theme holds that statistics matter little in an individual life. If anything, they tend to capture, not liberate, perception, and this can truncate development.

Transformation in Tiedeman's Thought

The transition from Newtonian to quantum mechanics started in a

physical science that was older, further developed, and more

disciplined than the career development field. However, career

development grew up embedded in the Newtonian worldview. Its

writings reflected that view until the Life-Is-Career[R] theory

intruded with a focus on the individual as theory maker

(Miller-Tiedeman & Tiedeman, 1983; Miller-Tiedeman, 1985, 1988,

1989, 1999). These two changes in theories will, beyond reasonable

doubt, affect the quality of life in the first half of the

twenty-first century. (Tiedeman, 1999, pp. 158-159)

Tiedeman recognized that the science on which research, theory, and practice is built either supports or limits individual development.

Thus, Tiedeman's fourth theory and practice theme involves moving to a science supporting a consciousness of being conscious in order to recognize process even at a young age:

There is no reason why kids can't themselves be theorists of human

nature. It's too heady a game, theory in human nature, to permit

psychologists to monopolize it. It's the capacity to theorize about

one's own nature which I make the center of my work. (D. V.

Tiedeman, personal communication, July 7, 1971)