Post #4

              I found this article to be rather frustrating; partly because some of it was confusing, but also because I disagreed with much of what it discussed.  As it was discussing some of the history of career counseling, it was talking about Parsons and how he would categorize all of his clients in to two categories:  decided and undecided (Savickas, 1995).  This immediately struck me as odd because everyone is different and their career decisions completely unique.  I think that for a counselor to segregate individuals simply based on having made a career choice yet or not is premature.  Secondly, it went on to discuss that the goal of the counseling was to "cure" the undecided clients (Savickas, 1995).  They seemed to believe that this "indecision reflected a personality problem or defect" (Savickas, 1995).  To me this was almost offensive.  I was one of those college students that had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I did not have any personality defect.  For me, there were so many choices, I simply wanted to make sure that I was making the right decision and that I was choosing a career that I was going to be happy with for the rest of my life.

                As I continued to read on about Constructivist counseling, I was hoping that it was going to be better than the positivist perspective.  I was confused as to how the five steps of constructivist counseling were going to actually play out with a client and so I was looking forward to the case study portion of this article.  Sadly, I was disappointed.  The story of the girl seemed to have an obvious ending and had no career counseling in it.  To me the constructivist approach was much more emotional counseling than it was focused on her career.  I understand that your family system and history play a role in your career however I do not know how the counselor got the girl to discuss these specific stories.  To me, I did not really see the relevance of some of the stories and then the conclusion of the entire counseling experience was that she should major in Mathematics because that's ultimately what she wants to do.  I feel like I simply could have asked the girl what she really would have wanted to do and she may have said math.  There are so many people that choose careers based on their parents opinions. Obviously if she was studying premed because her father suggested it, that would absolutely be something I would look in to as a career counselor.  I am glad that the girl ended up being happy with her decision to choose mathematics and talk openly with her father, but I feel like the route to get there may not have been the most efficient.

Savickas, M.L. (1995).  Constructivist Counseling for Career Indecision.  Career Development Quarterly, 43(4), 363-73.