I found
it interesting that this article aimed to link all the other theories together
and thus create an all encompassing idea titled, "The New Theory"
(Bloch, 2005, p. 196). I did find this
article to be little confusing though because I felt like the key points were
not aimed towards counseling, but aimed more towards science. I understand the idea behind this theory
closely relates to the scientific method, but I would still think that the
author could have had the key points relate to human beings rather than
entities. I felt like it was hard to
read the characteristics in scientific terms and then relate that to career
counseling.
One
quote in the article really resonated with me.
"Phase transitions are the opportunity for creativity and the emergence
of new forms" (Bloch, 2005, p. 197).
To me this seemed to mean that with change, comes growth. That makes sense to me. I have always found that I am not quick to
accept change, but that change allows for opportunity and new things to
develop. This idea also tied in to
another section of the theory which discussed small change bringing on large
effects. This also was something I was
able to easily grasp and relate to. Sometimes
by just altering one minor detail, it can have vast effects on the outcome. Relating this idea to counseling, I could
imagine how changing your career outlook even minimally could change your path
in the long run. Perhaps just by adding
one more detail on your resume it gives you the opportunity to get a job you
would have never even gotten an interview for before.
As
always, I enjoy the case studies in these articles. I have found that these applications to real
life help me to relate to the theories and actually see how they can be
implemented in a career development program.
In this specific case study, I was able to better understand the
limiting attractors (Bloch, 2005, p. 198).
This example focused on the torus attractor where someone seems to just
keep going around and around with the same career dilemmas. Using this example I was able to develop a
better idea of what the other two limiting attractors were discussing. The point attractor seems like it would be an
issue that an employee can just move past (Bloch, 2005, p. 198). No matter what they try to do to escape the
issue, they seem to keep staying at the same state. An example of this might be if an employee is
constantly trying to gain respect in their position and so they try to take
risks that may result in more respect, but they always seem to stay at the same
level. They cannot move up, but at the
same time they are not being fired either.
It is this endless stagnant state.
The second limiting attractor:
the pendulum attractor is when an employee keeps going back and forth
between two issues (Bloch, 2005, p. 198).
Maybe they leave one position because of low pay and then they move to a
position with high stress so they go back to a low paying job to get out of the
stress, but then they need the money of the high stress position.
Bloch, D. P. (2005). Complexity, Chaos, and Nonlinear
Dynamics: A New Perspective on Career
Development Theory. Career Development Quarterly, 53(3), 194-207.
No comments:
Post a Comment