Kevin Stoltz

I like to discuss my work with students aspiring to become faculty members. I believe that I am a good source of career development information. One day while working with one of my doctoral students I mentioned this blog. She became very interested and asked about its content. As we talked she came up with an idea and I asked her to write about it. I liked her reflections so well that I asked her to contribute to my blog. The blog that follows are her reflections on the career development. I found this amusing and insightful.

Last time I left you with a quick sketch of Adlerian counseling and suggested using the theory in career counseling. In this blog I will outline an example to better communicate these ideas. Now, on to Alan! Alan, is not a real client, but represents an amalgamation of a few clients that I worked with several years ago. Alan was a white male aged 24. He did not graduate from high-school and was working in construction jobs for which he held very little interest. Alan was in jail 2 times for selling drugs and he was recently released. He was referred by a friend of his that told him I could help him get a better job. “Don’t you just cringe when former clients build you up like that!?”

When I speak of using Adlerian concepts in career counseling I tend to get very strange looks even from the Adlerian counselors. I just smile and yes, you heard me correctly! Adler did talk about work as one of the 3 life tasks and he recognized that work has a central social role for adults. Following this line of thinking some Adlerians developed concepts to assist individuals in career selection. McKelvie (1979) wrote about the practice of career and life planning from an Adlerian perspective. He discussed the role of assessing lifestyle and helping the client to make career decisions using elements from the lifestyle. Watkins (1984a) wrote an excellent article outlining the use of Adlerian concepts to create a theory of Adlerian counseling. This article outlined several principle corollaries that help organize the theory into a framework for understanding the use of Adlerian ideas in career development. A central tenant is how lifestyle interacts with career decision making and the social role of work.

This blog will have a more personal tone than some of my earlier ones. I believe it is typical of counselors to process our experiences in several of our life roles, and I will process my recent experience in my life role as a son and counselor. Over the holidays, like many people, I planned and executed a visit to my family. I have lived away from my home city for several years and so this visit is more a responsibility that a desire. However, I fulfilled my responsibility and had an unexpected experience too!

Research indicates that children develop ideas about career much earlier than was previously thought (Hartung, Profeli, & Vondracek, 2005). According to Gottfredson (2002), children become aware of power in relationships and occupations at age 3 to 5 years. At 6 to 8 years old, children begin to identify gender with occupations and begin to associate prestige with careers around the age of 9 to 13. All of these developmental stages can be seen in the activities of children, and one of the major activities of children is play.