CAREER COUNSELING

CAREER COUNSELINGDEALING & UNDERSTANDING WITH RESISTANCE & PROBLEMATIC CLIENTS1/1/20022UNDERSTANDING & WORKING WITH RESISTANT CLIENTSWhy do clients resist?Walborn (1996) defined resistance as a fear of change.Cavanagh (1982) suggested 3 reasons why client resist change.1st. growth is painful. Painful foe some clients to stop old behaviors & start new behaviors coz starting new behaviors often requires becoming self-reliant, admitting self-deceit, & reexamining basic beliefs & values.2nd. maladaptive behaviors that may need to be changed often provide a distraction, help to vent anger, & atone for guilt.3rd. some clients may have counter therapeutic motives. They want permission not to change, they want to prove that somebody else to be blame, & they want to defeat the counselor.1/1/20023Cont.Yost & Corbishley (1987) pointed out that resistance in career counseling is often seen most clearly in the clientss failure to complete the tasks of the stage that is, to provide information, to set goals, or to do assigned homework.To be effective working with resistance clients:Important to acknowleedge that resistance can & does occur in career counseling. If you do not acknowledge this, then you will not look for resistance in your work with clients. And, if you do not lool for resistance, you will not see it. As a result, you may misread & misunderstand some client behavior as career counseling unfolds. 1/1/20024RECOGNIZING RESISTANCE:Fear of Counseling Meara and Patton (1994) said it can take 3 forms:1st.- fear of the counselor, focuses on clients fears that counselors will not meet their expectations.2nd.- fear of counseling process, revolves around such concerns as a lack of faith on the part of clients in the counseling process, clients feelings that they lack competence to be involved in the work of counseling, and the fear of working with authority figures.3rd.- fear of discovery, describes feelings of clients learning unwanted knowledge about themselves.1/1/20025Cont.Fear of Taking Responsibility King, 1992, Accepting responsibility for decisions is one of the most difficult things clients face in their lives. Counselors awareness and appreciation of the potential burden and threat that taking responsibility represents to clients are prerequisite to dealing with resistance in a positive mannerLow (1996) discovered that anything sounds more hopeful and more comforting than the bleak prospect of having to undergo training and selfdiscipline. Even brain tumors, mental ailments and hereditary taints are preferable to that dreadful indictment as being a weak character and needing training in self-controlInsulation & manipulation become necessary defense mechanisms for client survival.1/1/20026DEFENSE MACHANISMS & SABOTAGED COMMUNICATIONServe as safeguards of self-esteem.Allow for an evasion of life tasks.Some strategies are intended to ensure against failure, exposure, or other catasrophes.Strategy used may have the effect of making it impossible for clients to meet onerous responsibilities or at least it may delay the moment of truthClients may try to disqualify themselves from a race they do not wish to run.1/1/20027SABOTAGED COMMUNICATIONLow, 1966, Some communication tactics that allow the individual to maintain freedom from commitment and responsibility.There is an advantage to mystifying situations so that there is always room for doubt and, therefore, justified inactivity. If the situation gets too threatening, one can always justify gracious withdrawal.Keeping communication incomplete allows for the freedom to do what one pleases.1/1/20028LITERALNESSRejecting of a statement made by another without opposing it openly is a device that can be used to block efforts, combat views, or reject suggestions by means of misinterpretation of the words the other person uses. Situation that represents this sabotage approach:Client: I have been working on the behavior contract for several weeks and I dont see any results.Counselor: You must not be discouraged.Client: I am not discouraged. But, of course if no one sees progress.

1/1/20029DISCREDITINGAcceptance of the validity of another persons statement may imply ones own intellectual and moral inadequacy. Should the counselors statement be fully accepted, the clients simplicity or stupidity is thereby implied. The tactic of discrediting ensures that the process of change does not proceed too fast or too far. A position of no obligation is maintained by using a verbal pattern of but-knocking. But knockers acknowledge the premise and then proceed to attack or deny its applicability to their situation.Counselor: Here is an outline of a conflict resolution procedure that has been used successfully in a number of companies.Client: Very interesting. I can see how it would work with those large West Coast companies, but our company is quite different.1/1/200210DISPARAGING THE COMPETENCE OR METHODThe client must prove that the counselor is qualified and unqualified, expert and inept, proficient and unskilled, all at the same time. The dilemma is solved by a simple trick: the counselors competence is asserted explicitly but solidly denied by implication. The clients conscience is saved.Client: My uncle was telling me about a new stress reduction technique. It seems to work for him.there must be something.Tactics of this kind permit the client to maintain the illusion of cooperation while at the same time disrupting or opposing the process. I f the counseling process does not work, the method used or the counselors incompetence was at fault, neither of which was the clients responsibility.1/1/200211CHALLENGING ACCOUNTABILITYA common rejection of pursuing further exploration is the recourse to heredity. No one on any account can be held responsible for a difficulty inherited from ones ancestors.( No one in our family does well in math.)Accountability also can be directed toward other sources such as unique temperaments and moods, past traumatic experiences, and metaphysical or religious experiences. By presenting a hopeless situation, the client takes no responsibility. Labeling is one way to support this type of thinking. What can be expected from a dyslexic child or a mental patient?1/1/200212MAKING EXCUSESAnother way of understanding, interpreting, and working with resistance is to consider the concept of excuses.Snyder, Higgins, and Stucky (1983) defined excuses as explainations or actions that lessen the negative implications of an actors (client)Making excuses for their actions or inactions may be a way for clients to resist taking responsibility for their behavior, for not responding to the demands of the career counseling process and the tasks which may be involved.1/1/200213LESSENING APPARENT RESPONSIBILITYCategory of excuses can be described as the I didnt do it category. This category contains denial, alibis, and blaming excuses.Denial: occurs when a person states they ahad nothing to do with what happened.Alibis: when individuals use this excuse they feign ignorance of something. They imply that they couldnt have done something because they didnt know about it or they werent there.Blaming: as one client put it: Its like this. If its not my fault, its her fault, and if its not her fault, its still not my fault1/1/200214REFRAMING PERFORMANCES Individuals attempt to change the direction or to lessen the intensity of what happened or didnt happen. This is the Its really not so bad category.Minimization: Thus excuse attempts to manipulate the size, shape, and intensity of an event or behavior. Something did occur, but it wasnt too bad.Justification: Here the excuse maker supplies reasons for the excuse. There is after all a rationale for why I am saying what I am saying.Derogation: One way to handle a difficult situation is to put it down, to downgrade the person or situation. The professor doesnt know as much about (counseling) as I do.

1/1/200215LESSENING TRANSFORMED RESPONSIBILITYThis is the famous yes but category of excuses. An admission is made of something in the first word yes. Then it is taken away and explained in the word but. I couldnt help it. The most popular form of yes, but is Yes, but I couldnt help it . There are outside forces at work that made me do it. I didnt mean to. This kind of excuse deverts attention away from the act a person did. After all a person is really a good person. It wasnt really me. I wouldnt do such a thing. Blame is placed on internal or external conditions.1/1/200216IIRATIONAL BELIEFSCareer myths, Lewis and Gilhousen (1981), According to this authors, career myths are statements that reflect clients thoughts about the career development process that are based on underlying irrational beliefs. E.g. I am not sure if I want to do this the rest of my life. I want to be sure that I dont have to change majors at midyear and lose me credits. I think I had better be sure since I am deciding for the rest of my life.The irrational belief underlying such statements is, I must be absolutely certain before I can act (make a decision, gather information, do anything that require risk) (Lewis and Gilhousen, 1981). Such thinking creates a PARADOX1/1/200217FAULTY INFORMATION PROCESSINGAnother way to listen to and to understand clients during career counseling is to focus on how they think, on how they process information. Dowd (1995). 7 examples;Arbitrary Inference: refer to process of drawing a conclusion without data to support that conclusion or even with data contrary to that conclusion. e.g. a client may see himself or herself as an occupational lose despite any evidence for that belif, or despite even having had success in past jobs. 1/1/200218Cont.Selective Abstraction: the individual selects one or more details of a situation and conceptualizes the whole from those few details. These fragments are generally consistant with the cognitive set characteristic of that problem, so that an anxious person will focus on elements of danger and a depressed person, on elements of loss. e.g. A client may see clearly occupational deficiencies but not occupational successes.1/1/200219Cont.Overgeneralization: Refer to the tendency to draw conclusions about another person or situation, which may be true, and then generalizing these conclusions to situations where they may not be true. This is specially true of individuals suffering from panic disorders and post-traumatic streee disorders.e.g. A client has been laid off from a job due to lack of job skills, he may assume that he lacks skill for all future positions.1/1/200220Cont.Magnification & Minimization: Refer To the tendency to either overestimate or underestimate the significance of an event.e. g. A client may believe that a lack of ability in mathematics may be a little importance to a desire to become an engineer (a minimization), or conversely, that a grade D in one chemistry course dooms the chances for ultimate success as an engineer ( a magnification)1/1/200221Cont.Personalization: Refer to the tendency to infer a relationship of external events to oneself in the lack of any apparent connection, and is highly implicated in depression and in the paranoid personality disorder or style.e.g. A client may assume that a work rule is directed at him or her personally, when, in fact, it is aimed at solving a company problem. 1/1/200222Cont.Dichotomous Thinking: This is a characteristic of anxiety, depression, and a host of personality disorders or styles and is commonly referred to as all-or-nothing thinking. The individual assumes;e.g. that if events are not all good or safe, they are all bad and unsafe. Thus, a client may believe that if he or she does not perform work tasks flawlessly, he or she has failed the employer and himself or herself.1/1/200223Cont.Catastrophizing: Especially implicated in anxiety disorders, this refers to a tendency to construct the worst possible situation from an undesirable event.e.g. A client may assume that lack of success in landing a specific contract for the company may mean that he or she will be fired and eventually end up as a bag person on streets.1/1/200224OVERT PHYSICAL BEHAVIORMEARA & Patton, (1994) Client resistance can be manifested not only in what clients say during career counseling but also in their overt physical behavior as career counseling unfold.Some clients are silent and passive.Some clients show up late for career counseling sessions..ContSome clients do not show up for career counseling at all.Other clients terminate career counseling prematurely because they cant (wont) deal with important issues, with change.These are ways clients can escape from the pain of change, or from anxious situations1/1/2002251/1/200226Cont.Such overt physical behavior on the part of clients creates a real challenge for counselors.Some counselors personalize this behavior and end up blaming themselves. It must be something I am doing as a counselor that causes this.ContIssues of counselor competence may be involved in causing such client behavior, a more likely reason most of the time is client resistance.Various defense mechanisms, including excuses, are used to explain situation.

1/1/2002271/1/200228DEALING WITH RESISTANCEResistance clients have their own unique, idiosyncratic pattern for survival.Understanding that resistance can and does take place in career counseling,Recognizing the patterns resistive clients use,Knowing how to work with resistance within the career counseling process are crucial,No strategies are guaranteed to clear away resistance, but the client-counselor working alliance; joining metaphors, confrontation, and labeling and reframing, may be helpful1/1/200229COUNSELOR RESISTANCECavanagh (1982) lists 10 possible signs of counselor resistance;Cancel appointment or arrive late. ( Counselors always have good reasons for being late, people in counseling seldom do.)Talk at the person instead of listening to and talking with the person.Daydream and dose off.Talk about himself or herself instead of about the person in counseling.Forget pertinent information about he person.Set up impossible requirements.1/1/200230Cont.Suddenly discover that the person has a special problem and try to refer the person to another counselor who specializes in the problem.Refuse to consider as important the areas that the person perceives as important.Be sarcastic or buddy-buddy with the person.Introduce areas of discussion that are of interest to him or her but are not necessarily helpful to the person.1/1/200231DEALING WITH PROBLEMATIC CLIENTSSome client, however, bring special problems, & counselor is faced with the challenge of how to help these client proceed.Recognizing problem clients is relatively easy; selecting and implementing effective interventions is more of a challenge.Kinds of Problem Client:Have few or no interests.Express unrealistic aspirationsHave too many options1/1/200232CLIENTS WITH TOO FEW INTERESTSMost common problem career client.Much to counselors dismay, has a low, flat profile on an interest inventory ( i.e., low scores on all occupational areas).In majority cases, clients with few interests lacks information, either about self, occupations, or world of work.it, ContIsaacson (1985) states it, Ignorance is the cause of many problems .Ignorance is not the only explaination for few interests, however some clients can be expected to have more severe psychological problems, such as a confused or disorganized sense of identity.

1/1/2002331/1/200234ContSub-groups of clients who can be expected to suffer from a lack of information about careers:Adolescents with little life experience,Women with little or no paid work experience outside the home,Racial and ethnic minorities who have not been involved in the culture of mainstream America (e.g. Native Americans who have grown up on a reservation; Chinese or black Americans who have grown up in a ghetto).1/1/200235ContSame sub-group may also lack of self-awareness, probably due to lack of involvement in the kinds of activities that stimulate self-reflection and feedback from others, such as participation in social activities or interaction with diverse group of people.These sub-group too involves a broad-based, multistrategic approach aimed at engaging the client in intensive self-exploration and providing direct experiences in work-related activities.1/1/200236ContClients may be depressed. This possibility can be evaluated by determining whether the client expresses a similar lack of interest in other espects of life. However, if the primary cause of depression is work-related(e.g. the client was recently fired), then career counseling is probably the treatment of choice.Clients suffering from low self-esteem. They may view themselves as having few if any abilities, and though they may have some ideas about interests, they are unable to seriously consider them or express them to others because the related career options seem beyond their reach. The recommended treatment for these clients is reattribution training.

1/1/200237ContClients express few interests because of perceived / real environmental constraints, such as a limited opportunity structure for their gender, class, racial, or ethnic group, internalized restrictive opinions of signoficant others, and so on. TECHNIQUES:Self-Exploration personality assessmentIdentifying Likes, Dislikes and Interests.Experience in Work-Related Activities1/1/200238UNREALISTIC OR SELF-LIMITING ASPIRATIONSAspiration may be too high or too low, but in any case, there is an ability/interest discrepancy. Clients who judge their abilities as very low may be unable or reluctant to identify occupational interests. These clients simply cannot imagine being able to perform in any jobs.A common situation is when clients can identify some occupations of interest but discard them too quickly as out of reach. This problem is more often observed in women than in men and in lower rather than in higher socioeconomic classes.1/1/200239TECHNIQUES Aim of any techniques is to provide ways for clients to develop realistic estimates of their abilities and opportunities, rather than to actively persuade them in one direction or another ( steering people away from occupations that have been traditional for their gender, class, or racial group).Assessment of interests : It is important to urge clients to identify as many alternatives as possible for further exploration, no matter how reluctant they are to do so1/1/200240Skills Identification Exercises:To identify strenghts and abilitiesTo determine competencies or abilities that are important in ones workTo assess self-confidence and/or self-esteemTo increase positive self-evaluation for clients who doubt their abilities

ContTo help career changers examine alternatives by focusing on skillsTo formulate a career objective for writing a resumeTo serve as the first step in creating a resume that uses a skills or functional (versus chronological) format.

1/1/2002411/1/200242TECHNIQUESIdentifying Skills for General Self-AssessmentIdentifying Transferable Skills - List suggests helpful instructions for counselor to present:List of experiencesDescribe experiences in some details.ContIdentify skills used in each experiencesReview skills identified for patterns and prioritiesSummarize skills or group of skills that are most important and most enjoyable and that are musts in ones job or occupation1/1/2002431/1/200244ContAttribution theory is an effective approach to help clients with low self-estimates of ability.Theory posits that humans strive for a causal understanding of their world in order to maximize their control over it. Internal Attributions External Attributions Variables Attributions Effort LuckStable Attributions Ability Task difficulty 1/1/200245LIMITATION OF SKILLS IDENTIFICATIONSome clients have great difficulty identifying skills and/ or taking credit for their accomplishments. Severe deficits in this regard will necessitate counseling on issues such as self-esteem or self efficacy prior to completing skills exercises.ContSome clients will find skills identification using the Achievements methods to be tedious.Younger clients with little life or work experience will be unable to identify which skills would be most to them in their career.

1/1/2002461/1/200247LEARNING TO IDENTIFY SKILLSThese techniques will help counselors learn skills-identification process:Complete the skills identification process on yourself,using the method outlined.Complete Bolles and Zenoffs (1975) Quick Job-Hunting MapContInterview practicing career counselors and ask them about the methods they use to help clients identify skills.Make and complete a skills card sort on yourself.Ask several friends or family members to complete Table & Interview them about the benefits of the exercise.

1/1/2002481/1/200249MULTIPOTENTIALED CLIENTSPask-McCartney and Salomone (1998) subscibe to Fredericksons definition of multi- potentialed client as one who when provided with appropriate environments, can select and develop (a) number of competencies to a high level (1972)How does a counselor identify the truly multipotentialed client?ContCounselors can observe whether a client exhibits the following characteristics during initial or early interview: cognitive complexity and flexibility; intense curiousity; perfectionist tendencies; openness to a wide variety of experiences; strong interest in mastering problems; and ability to assimilate a multitude of environmental stimuli.

1/1/2002501/1/200251ContA flat but high-interest inventory profilePask McCartney and Salomone suggest that Hollands Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) can be used to check for differentiated scores on Hollands typology. High scores and lowContdifferentiation(i.e. total scores on most of the 6 types are high and close in numbers) would provide support for the hypothesis that the client is multipotentialed.

1/1/2002521/1/200253TECHNIQUESThere is a need to establish a special kind of client-counselor relationship; one characterized by a highly facilitative, accepting atmosphere.Futures thinking should be encouraged, whereby individuals envision themselves taking several paths, developing in different ways, and working in different environments.ContThere is a need to balance fantasy and reality and freedom and structure, as described:Stimulate a free spirit,Promotion of freedomNeed structured, systematic way of assessing and evaluating options ( Pask-McCartney & Salomone, 1988).

1/1/2002541/1/200255The EndThank youPresented by:Hjh. Fuziah bt. Hj. Abdul Rahman