Chapter 18

As I was reading the chapter for this week, I kept thinking “there needs to be a more holistic approach to career counseling” only to come upon the trend of career counseling section and the issue posed at the end of having a more holistic approach to career counseling in the future (Brown, 2012). I know that the only experience I had pertaining to career development prior to this class was taking an assessment of my interests and the potential careers I may be interested in pursuing. I also agree with Brown (2012) that career counseling should be seen as a specialty. The only coursework I have done thus far pertaining to career counseling is taking this class. How would I possibly be able to help individuals with both personal and career issues unless career development is an important component of my education spanning more than just a semester long course?

In addition, Brown (2012) brings up the need for career counselors to be aware of potential values expressed by particular cultural and racial identity groups. It definitely made me think how helpful a career counselor would be to me: a female, biracial, and LGBT client. This was also something I thought about a lot as my group will be presenting a career workshop for the LGBT community, and I have also taken multicultural counseling this semester. I realized that even though I bring a lot of factors from my own life to the table I still need to be knowledgeable of the multitude of racial and cultural backgrounds present in this world today.

I appreciate that more career information will be provided to individuals through online resources (Brown, 2012). The only concern I have about this is whether or not individuals will understand the importance of these resources without the aid of a career counselor. The creation of websites that are easily accessible should also provide information as to why the resource is beneficial to the user, and how it can be applied directly to the user’s own need of information for career development issues. Just as Brown (2012) writes that graduate career counseling courses put more emphasis on counseling than providing counselors an opportunity to orient themselves to career information, I think the opposite for online resources for individuals. It would be incredibly helpful to combine both factors stemming from an individual’s personal history and career information in both online and counselor/client interactions.

 Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.