Career Counseling

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I must address my stance on how much career counseling that I would like to do as opposed to automatically performing that type of counseling. My background is one of a person in a long term sobriety, having passed the mark of 27 years last December 7th. This is not to brag, just to state that I would like to have this type of focus in my practice. I also have been battered, having had my jaw broken long ago, from a husband who thought he owned me, back in 1974. Due to once being married to that person, my view is one of disgust for this type of person, male or female. While this is part of my history, and will always remain part of my history, I do own these situations none the less, and they will no doubt have some sort of bearing as to how I would approach any person being new to sobriety and also if the person in front of me is a battered person. It matters nothing to me if that person is a male or a female, with statistically, it is usually a female, yet I would bring to the table between a client and myself, a person who will not judge, nor give advice, but try to help the person understand that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I could be writing some psychobabble right now, but I prefer to be honest and clear in my writing this paper. I am a strong person, and will be hopefully, to help anyone who genuinely wants to change. To get back to doing assessments for career counseling, I feel that I could handily be able to give assessment testing to someone who would like to change careers whether they want to switch, or are forced by job losses and have no choice but to move forward and learn another way in which to earn a living. I would have to think long and hard before I would always incorporate career counseling in my practice, for I do not want that to be my focus. Also, a person going through changes needs to be able to focus on one mighty task at a time. The client didn’t get into their particular situation in one day, and will need to get themselves, their self-worth back, before they can worry about testing for a career. I realize that this class was to learn how vital career counseling is for a client, but this paper was to be written from our own personal viewpoint, and this is mine. While there is great value in having the ability to incorporate career testing tools and scoring, within my practice, I feel that to be totally focused in that area would be detrimental to the practice. It is nice to be able to provide this service, and I would if asked by the client, but again, I do not want this to be the focus of my practice with clients.

In looking for a central place in which to find the different types of testing tools that are available, I found that there are many, so I will not mention all of them here, in one place. One of the most popular testing tools is the Myers-Briggs Indicator which, when scored, will indicate the dichotomies, of which there are four (4) “types” of people, pointing to either the person being an introvert or extravert, and will also indicate sixteen (16) distinctive personality traits. It is a rather revealing testing tool in that most times, it does come close to indicating the underlying “personality” of the person taking the test. There is also the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which will divide people into four (4) categories or “temperaments.” The amount of testing choices is seventy-one (71), so this type of testing takes a bit of time to do, but will, surprisingly, give a somewhat accurate “reading” of the persons personality. There are some others, which I will not delve into other than listing them here. There is MyPlan.com, which matches you with different types of jobs that a person might not have even thought to try for. There are seven hundred thirty nine (739) rankings of jobs to seek out information on, so this type of testing might be interesting for someone who would like to really venture out into some other field that had been foreign to them before. In this testing group we have the Big 5, 16 Personalities, MyNextMove, and several others, all providing a different type of testing to better understand what the client might be totally interested in for a career, or as to what their subconscious really enjoys, and might enjoy, as a career change. My personal favorite is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or known as the MMPI (Pope, Butcher, Seelen, 1993). I have personal knowledge of this tool as I had to take this after my rehab for alcohol in May of 1987. During the child custody hearings, this was administered to me by the opposing council, as my then husband wanted to take my children away. He had kept insisting that I could not care for the children, that I was unstable. A psychiatrist sent me home to take this test, as for that period of time, there was over five hundred (500+) questions and they had to be answered in one sitting. I was not to put it down and walk away from the test and I wasn’t to overthink the answers. To my ex-husbands dismay, the testing showed that I was very sane, but had addiction issues with a substance, which I had just gone through rehab for. My children stayed with me, and as for the “father,” his narcissistic personality hated the blow to his ego.

In most of my counseling classes, from those at Chapman/Brandman, and in the beginning of my counseling course at American River College, being a counselor that maintains a multicultural outlook, being sensitive to other cultures and the differing views of cultures, must be ethically and soundly followed in order to be able to help persons of other ethnicities, religions, moneyed persons as well as the homeless, treating all with the respect and honesty that must be given to all of humanity.

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References

Chartrand, J. M. (1991). The Evolution of Trait‐and‐Factor Career Counseling: A Person× Environment Fit Approach. Journal of Counseling & Development, 69(6), 518-524.

Corning, P.A. Journal of Bioeconomics (2000) 2: 41. doi:10.1023/A:1010027222840

Hansen, L. S. (1996). Integrative Life Planning. Critical Tasks for Career Development and Changing Life Patterns. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104-1342..

Monster website: https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/best-free-career-assessment-tools

Pope, K. S., Butcher, J. N., & Seelen, J. (1993). The MMPI, MMPI-2 & MMPI-A in court: A practical guide for expert witnesses and attorneys. American Psychological Association.

Roe, A. (1949). Integration of personality theory and clinical practice. The Journal