Chapter 6

One thing while reading I had to think about the differences between modern thinking and contextualist thinking when it comes to career counseling.  Modern thinking is that an individual creates themselves from the inside out; that they have to work within who they are.  The contextualist thinking is that they have to make sense of their experiences and therefore create themselves from the outside in.  Brown (2016) mentioned two contextualist theories in chapter 6.  The first theory was proposed by Young, Valach, and Collin (2002) and the second one was Savickas (1995, 2002, 2013).  Brown (2002) (as stated in Young, Valach and Collin, 2002) that they “an essential aspect of career counseling is interpretation, which involves making sense of the client’s experiences (p. 104).  I think that was a very interesting point that they made.  Interpreting what the client is saying and making meaning to the story is an essential key to career counseling.  It allows the counselor to be able to understand the client more internally.  Also, the client works with the counselor to interpret the meaning of their story.  This helps create a mutual level of understanding.

   The other theory mentioned by Brown (2016) was Savickas Career Construction Theory.  What I found interesting with his beliefs is that he used many different theories to form his own.  He used Hollands theory and his six personality types. Savickas believes that exposing the client to the six different personality types and work environments it will promote self-reflection for the client. I think it is important to use the viewpoints of others.  It gives you broader knowledge and it expanded Savickas theory.  I also thought it was interesting when Brown (2016) mentioned that Savickas believed that the “construction of self occurs primarily through a reflective profess, that is, thinking about self and interpreting the thoughts as they occur in context (p.105).  I think self-reflection can go a long way.  It allows the client to become creative of their own life.  They are the expert of their own experiences and each client is creative in their own way.  Self-reflection is just a replication of that.  So far learning what school counseling is; I’ve learned that in order to help counsel a client it is best that I promote and encourage their creativity and that they need to self-reflect and marinate on their issues.  I am here for guidance and support as they figure it out themselves. This chapter was very interesting to me as I found out a lot more about these contextualized theories and how they are going to incorporate in my line of work. 

Brown, D. (2016). Career information, career counseling, and career development (11th Ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 978-0-13-391777-2.