Carl Rogers

One of the phrases that Rogers used to describe his therapy is "supportive, not reconstructive," and he uses the analogy of learning to ride a bicycle to explain: When you help a child to learn to ride a bike, you can't just tell them how. They have to try it for themselves. And you can't hold them up the whole time either. I think that this is a really good analogy to consider in career guidance, as overall the underlying goal of career guidanace and education is to assist the client in becoming independent as possible in his/her efforts to find and maintain suitable employment, and to be able to career plan effectivley through out their lives.

In Roger's approach, the use of attending, paraphrasing, mirroring, summarizing and questioning replace diagnosis, in the attempt to have the client arrive at a state of self-actualization. In order for this to happen, a warm and supportive relationship is to be established between the counsellor and the client. I much prefer this apprach to the matching theories such as the seven point plan, where the control of the interview lies with the practioner, the practioner makes assumptions under the folowing areas ; physical Make up, atainments, general inteilligence, special aptitudes, interests, disposition and circumstances. although these areas are still covered in depth during inerviews it is not in such a discriminatory manner.

Although I prefer Rogers apprach i also think that an element of matching or influence is sometimes inevitable, i witnessed this a bit in my placements, at career scotland, and employment opertunities. Even Rogers was aware that practioners would not be able to be completley uninflential to the client, this is why as he became more experienced he changed his theory from 'non directive approach' to the 'client centered'.

Ivan Illich

Illichs paper I had to read a few times!! It’s quite a scary view of professions, accrediting them with a huge amount of power and influence and the ability to manipulate society. He believes that professions dictate our needs, I think that this could be also put the other way, as consumers we expect and want more from our products, we want more intelligent products that can provide a multitude of functions and we will quickly replace what does not and spend our money elsewhere, therefore I guess that professions could be meeting increasingly complicated consumer demands.

Although to some extent you could agree with Illichs point that professions have made us this way, constantly upgrading and making products bigger an better, making a mobile phone bought a month ago out of date alreadys! However this is the way the world works, it constantly changes and evolves and technology is no different. Many changes in technology can hardly be defined as grave advances and have provided great benefits. Medical advances for instance have greatly enhanced the life of many patients who before would have suffered terribly or had their life cut short.

Donald Schon

Had to read this article twice before i could get to grips with it, but after the second reading i found it quite interesting and also an article which there are lessons to be learned from.

The notions of reflection-in-action, and reflection-on-action were central to Donald Schon’s analysis of professions. The former is sometimes described as ‘thinking on our feet’. It involves looking to our experiences, connecting with our feelings, and attending to our theories in use. It entails building new understandings to inform our actions in the situation that is unfolding.

He states ‘The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behavior. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation.

I thinks that this is interesting as We test out our ideas and this allows to develop further responses and moves. Significantly, to do this we do not closely follow established ideas and techniques - textbook schemes. We have to think things through, for every case is unique. However, we can draw on what has gone before. Our degrees and training can only take us so far we have to not only ‘think’ but learn on our feet, obviously what has been taught can be applied, but not all cases are textbook ones. i think that this is an important point for professionals to remember, they are not finished learning once they graduate. Professionals working in all areas must react to the imeadiate situation they cannot necessarily always draw upon tried and tested methods, as sitations change and we are often confronted with something unique. They must use and pull elements from what they have leaned bring together different theories and concepts. this is particularly so in a profession that deals with people, no two people are the same.

Schon however attributes the crisis in confidence of professions to this, he states that professional knowledge is ‘ mismatched to the changing character of the situations of practice’….professionals have been called upon to perform tasks for which they have not been educated, the niche no longer fits the education, or the education no longer fits the niche.’ I think that it would be impossible to teach everything about any particular subject, it is a given that any professional during their working life will encounter something that they have not necessarily been taught, it is new discoveries which facilitate learning and make the professional better and more experienced in his or her field. Using theyre own initiative or what Schon terms ‘artistry’ is what makes a professional a professional in a sense. Should professionals merely rely on the training that they received and strive to develop no further then we would probably still be stuck in the dark ages.

With regard to a public crisis’s of confidence in professionals, this is spookily relevant today. With banks collapsing round our feet, and the bad press which many doctors and social workers have received for grave mistakes which they have made. However I think that at large we still very much need professionals, although we can now look up and diagnose ourselves medically through the internet for example, the need for doctors and nurses is not obsolete, and is an invaluable service that we will continue to rely on for a long while. It is unavoidable that obviously some professionals will use their knowledge to their own gain…. ‘Serving themselves at the expense of their clients’, but there are good genuine professionals out there and many of us ourselves will have experienced their help no doubt.

Im not too sure where career guidance and education would fall in all of this, but the advisors that I have met during my placement definitely fall in to the latter category of good, and are genuinely interested in helping and progressing their clients as best that they can.

Blog???

this is the first ive ever really blogged, have to admit that ive never had a bebo or facebook.... almost veryone that i know has one!!
ive just never really found the time, however here goes, hopefuly first attempt at on line blogging will go ok.............................