Personal Theories of Career Counseling

  Personal Theories of Career Counseling Description: Write a paper that describes your personal orientation to career counseling. This should include a description of the way you understand major elements of the career process, how that understanding guides interventions, and how it relates to your general orientation to counseling and the change process. Expectation: This paper will be 5-7 pages of content (not to exceed 7), double-spaced and in APA style. In-text citations should be used where appropriate. This paper will include the following elements (they may be presented in any order you choose): - A coherent theory of vocations that reflects your personal understanding of: (a) what ‘work’ or ‘career’ is and how it relates to the life of the client, (b) how people develop their job/career-related interests/values; (c) how people make job/career decisions; and (d) what are valued outcomes, such as vocational performance or persistence. You may use any of the theories we have discussed or elements thereof. o My response: Use Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett): overall model, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests model, etc. - Describe the interventions that would flow naturally from this theory, and would produce the process goals associated with the theory. You may use an example(s) to demonstrate these principles. o My Response: SCCT/CBT Career interventions that improve self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, etc. - Connect this theory to your theory of change (or psychotherapeutic orientation) more broadly. How does it fit with how you see people, how they move through the world, and how our field can bring help to our communities and our clients? o My Response: Connect SCCT to Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy You do not have to address these prompts point by point, or in this specific order, but they should be addressed somewhere throughout your paper. Evaluation: 20% of total grade, based on: - Accurate description of theory - Sufficient support for positions - Complete discussion of ramifications of position - Understandable, concrete application - Logical connection to orientation/worldview - Appropriate APA style - Writing mechanics and style