Career counseling in the twenty-first century: beyond cultural encapsulation.

The author analyzes the context in which professional career counseling in the U.S. exists at the beginning of the 21st century and makes recommendations to enhance the growth and development of the profession. The issues addressed include developing curricula, training career counselors, broadening the focus on career decision making to include work adjustment, improving the basic and advanced skills of career counselors, and extending career services to diverse groups in the U.S. and to people in other nations. Specific strategies that address each of these issues are discussed.

In this article, I discuss the strengths that make career counseling a resilient profession, some weaknesses that are inherent in this profession, opportunities that have arisen at this point in history, and the threats that may forestall these opportunities. In addition, I present a strategic plan that ensures the future viability of the career counseling profession.

Strengths of Career Counseling

A chief strength of career counseling as a profession is its relatively long history. The beginnings of the organized practice of career counseling in the United States and Europe date to the early 1900s (Brewer, 1942; Pope, 2000). Because of this history, there is a large body of data, knowledge, theory, and skills, which provide the underpinnings for the effective practice of career counseling. This long history has also led to the availability of many career development theories. These theories and their derivatives inform the practice of career development.

A second strength of the career counseling profession is a very practical one--you can make money! People who specialize in career counseling can earn a lucrative salary. In fact, the independent practice of career counseling is one of the few applied psychology fields in which individuals can make substantial amounts of money.

Another strength of career counseling is that it is inherently positive. It focuses on a person's strengths and how to use those strengths appropriately. A "new" movement in psychology has named itself "positive psychology." It is no more than what career counselors have been doing every day for more than 90 years.

Yet another strength is that individuals who are having career problems seek out career counselors. Although there continue to be substantial shame and guilt attached to such mental health issues as depression or personality disorders, there is relatively little shame in not having all the skills to make an effective career decision. Career counseling has not been tainted with the mental illness, medical model approach to counseling. In fact, it has been relatively impervious to forays by medical model practitioners (Lowman,1993).

Career counseling practitioners have many positive attributes. They believe in the power of career development. There is an energy and passion similar to the energy and passion of fanatics in sports or religion or of any other "true believers." This energy and passion, combined with a more enterprising personality type (Gottfredson & Holland, 1989), makes career counselors a formidable force in the counseling profession. Furthermore, I admire the kinds of people who are attracted to the profession of career counseling: They are proactive, positive, and strengths oriented. They are also better at marketing than their non-career counseling counterparts.

Finally, career counseling has been applied to many groups of people and cultures around the world, from Asian to Native American to women's cultures to sexual minority cultures such as gay male and lesbian and to other multiracial, multiethnic, multisexual, and multicultural groups. There has been a strong and growing movement in the career counseling profession to address the problems of applying to other cultures the career development principles that were originally developed with a White, upper-class or middle-class, male population. There is also a strong movement to expand career counseling to countries that are not at the same stage of historic development as the United States and a few other countries--not in a way that imposes one culture's models on another culture, but in a way rooted in indigenous practices of helping.

Weaknesses of Career Counseling

In career counseling as in life, when strengths are overused or applied rigidly, they become weaknesses. The weaknesses of career counseling at times mirror the already enumerated strengths. A strength of career counseling is that its practitioners can make substantial amounts of money, yet because of that, the profession of career counseling can attract charlatans and foster greed in people. It is the bane of the career counseling profession, one founded in helping others solve their life problems, that it sometimes attracts this unsavory element. Not that there is anything wrong with making money working at something one loves, but where there is an opportunity for financial gain, a greedy, selfish group of people who put themselves before the good of their clients will also arise.

Furthermore, the kinds of people who are drawn to career counseling as a profession are also very problem-solving oriented. This may make them more likely to lead their clients to foreclose their decision making too quickly, without exploring more of the possibilities with their clients. As a result of the old "test 'em and tell 'em" approaches (attributed to the trait-factor practitioners), there was a strong tendency toward "outcome" over that of "process." Career counseling practitioners who are currently advocating the more narrative approaches are contributing to a rebalancing of the profession toward more process-oriented approaches (Emmett, 2001; Jepsen, 1996; Savickas, 1995).

Another outcome of the "test 'em and tell 'em" approach is that the number of client sessions is quite limited (usually 1-5 sessions), and rarely do clients, therefore, discover the other, more in-depth issues that may eventually become an obstacle to their career development process. When clients do begin to develop this awareness, they may have already made a substantial investment in a new occupation (e.g., time and money in getting the necessary training, moving to a new city, emotional commitment, occupational/professional identity development). A process orientation from the beginning can help to identify such obstacles early and more effectively help the client.

Another weakness is that much of the theory and research on which career counseling is based have been focused on career decision making. Although this is an important and laudable use of counselors' resources and clients' time, there are other aspects of work and employment that have been pushed to the side in the exuberance over career decisions. This has led to narrowing the focus of the career counseling profession and has allowed other fields to capture these issues as part of their work. Career counseling cannot claim to be a more holistic and integrated and unified field of study when it clearly has such a narrow focus.

Many times the people who teach the career counseling courses do not have an appreciation and love and passion for career counseling. It is perceived as not as attractive as personal counseling. Many of those who do have a passion for career counseling are unable to teach the course in an interesting, thought-provoking, and engaging way. Furthermore, counselors-in-training have generally considered such courses as routine and boring. In a field in which there is such passion for career counseling by those who specialize in it, it is regrettable that some counselor education programs cannot have one faculty member who can teach a strong career counseling course. Recently, the National Career Development Association (NCDA) has begun publishing books (e.g., Niles, Goodman, & Pope, 2002; Pope & Minor, 2000) to support improvement in career counseling courses.

Another weakness of the career counseling profession is that because so many of its practitioners have such a passion for this specialty area of counseling, like other "true believers" they may become avid proponents of their own approach and fail to appreciate the importance of different approaches and of criticism of the orthodoxy. Without such criticism and different approaches, the field may become moribund and its ideas may stagnate--never finding that next new approach that may be better than the old one from which it came.

Finally, many of the best and brightest minds in practice and in theory development are focused on only one population--the haves (ignoring the have-nots)--or only on the dominant culture and not on the many target cultures that are part of any social system. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, including money (fees and costs), the availability of clients/subjects, the similarity of culture between practitioner-scientist and client-subject, and others. It is a reflection of what Wrenn (1962) first referred to as the culturally encapsulated counselor and is an issue for all career counselors to consider in their work.

Opportunities for Career Counseling

The career counseling profession will have many opportunities during the next decade. Some of these opportunities include expanding the tools to help teach interesting and engaging career counseling courses, developing research in aspects of the career counseling process other than career decision making, and expanding the skills for the practice of career counseling. The most significant opportunity, however, will arise through the expansion of career counseling into underserved groups in the United States and other nations--expanding client populations and, therefore, the opportunities both for truly helping people and for making money.

Because career counseling is perceived as routine and boring by many counselor educators and counselors-in-training, there are significant opportunities in curriculum design and development, especially for constructing materials, techniques, and other aids to teach career counseling. Such materials as experiential activities, cases, videos, lesson plans, and syllabi all should provide opportunities for active learning, which is crucial for adult learners, including counselors-in-training.

Because much of the career development theory and research has focused on only one aspect of the career issue, that is career decision making, there are many opportunities to develop research, approaches, models, and practical skills in other aspects of career counseling that focus on getting, progressing in, and maintaining a job, as well as making the transition to another job or to retirement. There are opportunities to broaden a too narrowly defined field of study.

Another opportunity to help the practice of career counseling is to focus on and widely market what works in career counseling and why it works. Identifying the best practices in career counseling and making such practices widely known would provide important assistance to those who provide career services.

Because career counseling can touch every aspect of a person's life and because career counseling has not been tainted with the social stigma of mental illness, there is rarely a dearth of clients. Although much of career counseling is time limited, practitioners find that their client base is only constrained by their marketing skills, because the potential audience for such services is limitless. Furthermore, any time there is a social transition, there are even more clients. If helping people is what motivates a career counselor, there is an important opportunity during social transitions to really help people who are suffering. Career counselors can quite quickly make a very positive difference in people's lives.

Because career counselors have generally focused their practice and research on the dominant culture in a country, there are important opportunities to significantly expand the base of career counseling by providing research on the career development of individuals who have not generally been offered career counseling services. These groups include members of nondominant domestic cultures in the United States, such as individuals in lower middle and lower economic categories; non-European racial and ethnic groups (especially African Americans, Latin Americans, and Native Americans); sexual minorities (lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, intersex, and others); individuals who are differently "abled," and so on.

This also includes expanding career counseling services to people in other countries. There are many countries that are just beginning to develop a career counseling profession. This provides opportunities for career counseling professionals from countries at a different stage both to learn about the indigenous forms of helping that are used in a particular country and to assist in developing such helping strategies for career counseling issues. Furthermore, in the provision of career counseling services to cultural minorities in every country in the world, the dynamics and context in each culture will change. The practice context will change and so will the research opportunities. Think of all the possible permutations when the dominant culture and target cultures are different from the context in which a person regularly operates. For example, the Chinese are a target culture in the United States but are obviously a dominant culture in China and several other places, including Singapore and Taiwan.

Threats to Career Counseling

There are few true obstacles in the way of the career counseling profession as it moves forward after 90 years of organizational existence. Like people, organizations go through a number of stages in their own development, with different threats and obstacles taking prominence at different stages. The first obstacle concerns the very human attribute that allows complacency when all is going well, especially during the maintenance phase in the life of a profession. A second obstacle that could develop is that the professional leadership of career counseling--both intellectual and organizational--might just lose its way and be unable to reclaim or redevelop a vision and purpose that are relevant for a new era in the social organization of work. This is a rather common problem during an organization's maintenance phase.

Finally, but important, another threat to the career counseling profession is a creeping cultural encapsulation and its concomitants--national chauvinism, isolationism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, "ableism," and all the other human prejudices that consistently derail progress in individuals' own personal, professional, and societal development. This obstacle is the most insidious because many times it goes undetected. Because we, as career counselors, are part of a historically progressive profession and care deeply about people, it is common to think that we have no prejudices. The truth is that everyone has prejudices; it is not possible to grow to adulthood in a racist, sexist, homophobic society without carrying vestiges of these aspects of oppression. Oppression oppresses and, therefore, even an African American lesbian who walks with a cane and has strong cultural identities still has some self-hatred. No one totally escapes such psychological deformation. As we continue to judge another culture by the standards of our own, we miss a personal and professional growth opportunity.

There is a natural ebb and flow in all organizations, but almost all of these threats can be overcome simply through the vitality inherent in the practice of this form of counseling. It is important not to be diverted by these obstacles, for to do so will lead to the decline of career counseling as a profession. To remain vital, career counseling must be willing to metamorphose into new forms as the times dictate.

A Strategic Plan to Enhance Career Counseling

What I wish to propose here is a detailed strategic plan of actions to address the issues discussed in this article. I focus on designing curriculum for the training of career counselors, broadening the focus beyond career decision making, expanding the basic and advanced skills of career counselor practitioners, and extending career counseling to underserved groups in the United States and exporting it to other nations in culturally appropriate ways.

To improve the training of career counselors, NCDA should continue to publish materials itself and foster the development of materials to aid in teaching interesting and engaging career counseling classes that focus on active learning. There are many ways to learn, and career counseling materials need to be presented in lively ways that engage the student in the learning process. Such materials might include experiential activities, cases, videos, lesson plans, and syllabi. All are important to provide opportunities for the active learning that is very important for adult learners, a group that includes many counselors-in-training.

To broaden the focus beyond career decision making, NCDA must include a strand at its annual conference for programs regarding what career counselors do after their clients have made their career decisions. NCDA should have a special invited conference on the other aspects of career counseling (not career decision making), such as maintaining a job, different stages in the career development in a person's life, the latest ways of progressing in a career, and the career counselor's actions and duties after clients have made their career decisions. Selected papers from this conference should be published in a special issue of The Career Development Quarterly.

To improve the basic and advanced skills of career counselor practitioners, NCDA should have at least one of its national conference themes focus on the "best practices" in career counseling and then turn the proceedings of that conference into a usable textbook on what works in career counseling and why it works. The NCDA conference should strive to have both beginning practice and advanced practice workshops, along with a strong multicultural emphasis infused into all presentations. NCDA should offer awards for best practices in career counseling and widely publicize that competition. NCDA should actively seek to market career development more effectively to external constituencies such as legislators, school counselors, parents, and institutions (corporate, educational, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies). It should also actively work with counselor educators who teach career counseling classes to infuse marketing skills (media and organization relations) into those courses. These skills should not be simply private practice marketing skills, but they should also include how to market the idea of career development and planning into the societal institutions in which career counselors have membership or that affect their lives. NCDA should develop audio and video public service announcements that inform people about the good that career counseling can do in their lives.

To extend career counseling into underserved groups in the United States and other nations, NCDA must return to its social justice roots by conducting a career development project for underserved groups (e.g., inner-city youth) in each city where it holds a conference. It should also institute annual awards for "contributions to multicultural career counseling" and for "contributions to international development of career counseling." NCDA must have a strand at its conference that concerns multicultural and cross-cultural career counseling. NCDA must actively recruit leaders from underserved groups as part of its succession planning process. NCDA must develop and encourage others to develop materials that address the special concerns of nondominant domestic cultures in the United States, such as individuals in lower-middle and lower economic categories, women, non-European racial and ethnic groups, sexual minorities, those who are differently abled, younger and older workers, and others. NCDA should require that the next editions of any of the books that it publishes address issues of culture--both domestic and international cultures--and that any publication proposed to NCDA includes a section detailing how this publication will address these issues and how it might be marketed to other cultures, again both domestically and internationally.

Conclusion

This analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats pertaining to the career counseling profession has looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the profession along with the opportunities to advance the profession and the threats to its continued vitality. Although it is impossible to predict the future with accuracy, there are patterns, and the United States is currently in the stage when issues of multicultural and cross-cultural issues in career counseling are critical (Pope, 2000). The issues that are addressed here include curriculum design and development for the training of career counselors, broadening the focus beyond career decision making, improving the basic and advanced skills of career counselor practitioners, and extending career counseling to underserved groups in the United States and other nations.

References

Brewer, J. M. (1942). History of vocational guidance. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Emmett, J. (2001). A constructivist approach to the teaching of career counseling. In K. Eriksen & G. McAuliffe (Eds.), Teaching counselors and therapists: Constructivist and developmental course design (pp. 139-167). Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Gottfredson, G., & Holland, J. (1989). Dictionary of Holland occupational codes (2nd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Jepsen, D. A. (1996). Relationships between developmental career counseling theory and practice. In M. L. Savickas & W. B. Walsh (Eds.), Handbook of career counseling theory and practice (pp. 135-153). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Lowman, R. L. (1993). Counseling and psychotherapy of work dysfunctions. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Niles, S., Goodman, J., & Pope, M. (Eds.). (2002). The career counseling casebook: A resource for students, practitioners, and counselor educators. Tulsa, OK: National Career Development Association.

Pope, M. (2000). A brief history of career counseling in the United States. The Career Development Quarterly, 48, 194-211.

Pope, M., & Minor, C. (Eds.). (2000). Experiential activities for teaching career counseling and facilitating career groups. Columbus, OH: National Career Development Association.

Savickas, M. L. (1995). Constructivist counseling for career indecision. The Career Development Quarterly, 43, 363-373.

Wrenn, C. G. (1962). The culturally encapsulated counselor. Harvard Educational Review, 32, 444-449.

Mark Pope, Division of Counseling and Family Therapy, University of Missouri St. Louis. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mark Pope, Division of Counseling and Family Therapy, College of Education, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St. Louis, MO 63121-4499 (e-mail: [e-mail]).