I think I’m a Savickas fan. As we’ve been sifting through career counseling theories so far this semester, I find myself resonating with and shaking my head up and down most to Savickas. As we were first introduced to his 1995 article on constructivist counseling for career indecision, I remember thinking that his case study-- where he allowed the client to tell her narrative, look for meaningful themes and be the author of reclaiming her own career story-- was one that I easily grasped, that felt more intuitive to me and I could easily visualize in practice.
It seems that Savickas gets even better with time, though. In reviewing Savickas’s Five-Step Career Counseling Model, I felt thankful to finally get it. Maybe it’s that the reading material is finally coming together for me. Or maybe it’s that I understood the historical leaps from positivist, objective models of counseling to subjective, constructivist counseling to postmodern, nonlinear, contextualist career counseling and just that understanding made me breathe a sigh of relief. In any case, I felt reassured to see Table 6.2 (Brown, 2016, p.108), where Savickas’s Five-Steps were clearly laid out. Not only do they make sense in the context of our reading, but I feel I finally have a mode of operation in career counseling (with construction, deconstruction, reconstruction, coconstruction and action) that makes sense to me! I have the distinct feeling I will be rereading that table (and the corresponding case study, for that matter) many times.
Another part of Chapter 6 that reassured me was reading about solution-focused counseling. Not only was I able to make new connections with the contextualist view and adapt parts I like about solution-focused counseling to Savickas’s Five-Steps, but I was pleased with one triumph in particular… I now understand what Dr. Garner is doing in our Counseling Theory & Practice class! Of course she did explain that she was utilizing a solution-focused approach with us, but just being able to read the “bullet points” of the solution-focused approach was extremely helpful at this point. The timing couldn’t have been better. Our readings are coming together and our counseling classes are dovetailing so nicely.
Brown, D. (2016). Career information, career counseling, and career development (11thed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 978-0-13-391777-2.
Savickas, M.L. (1995). Constructivist counseling for career indecision. Career Development Quarterly, 43(1), 363-373.
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