Career and Personal Concerns Expressed by Career Counseling Clients

Discussion of the degree to which career counseling encompasses issues commonly associated with psychotherapy (e.g., self-esteem, relationships, family-of-origin issues) is gaining momentum as more scholars examine the relationship between career counseling and psychotherapy (Brown & Brooks, 1991; Herr, 1989; Krumboltz, 1993; Manuele-Adkins, 1992; Spokane, 1989; Super, 1993). Clearly overlap exists (Crites, 1981; Herr, 1989; Krumboltz, 1993; Spokane, 1989), yet, Spokane (1991) has cautioned that "we should not overdraw the relationship at the expense of the unique contribution of career development theory and practice to modern psychology" (p. 8). Figler (1984) urged career counselors to describe the overlap between psychotherapy and career counseling to strengthen professional identity and to establish more clearly their own knowledge base and standards of practice. In the current study, we empirically examined the relative proportion of career and personal issues expressed by career clients at a university counseling center.This study focuses on a content analysis of a section of counselor case notes titled "Core Client Concerns" in which counselors identified the most important issues expressed by their clients in each counseling session. The results of this analysis are used to develop a system with which to classify these core concerns. The frequencies of occurrence of the various categories and subcategories are examined to reveal the content of career counseling.METHODParticipantsThe 31 participants in this study included 8 men and 23 women with a mean age of 35 years (range = 22 to 50, SD = 6) and a mean educational level of 15.4 years (range = 12 to 20, SD = 2.3). Of the participants, 17 were married and 8 were divorced. Most were Caucasian.The clients met with their counselors for a mean of 8.3 fifty-minute sessions (range = 4 to 15, SD = 2.4 sessions). Termination could take place at any time based on client wishes. Nine advanced master's and 11 doctoral degree counselor education students served as the counselors. They were trained in Super's developmental model for career assessment and counseling (Super, 1990; Super, Osborne, Walsh, Brown, & Niles, 1992) and supervised by counselor education program faculty. The counselors filed case notes after each counseling session.All clients completed several assessment instruments including the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI; Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Jordaan, & Myers, 1988). The ACCI assesses client level of concern with the developmental tasks of the Exploration (Ex), Establishment (Es), Maintenance (Ma), and Disengagement (Di) stages of career development. An ACCI score of 3.5 or higher for any developmental stage indicated a significant amount of career concern.Participants in the study included all clients at a university-sponsored personal and career development counseling center between January 1989 and June 1992 who experienced career concerns (as indicated by an ACCI score of 3.5 or higher) and who expressed at least one career concern during the intake interview.ProcedureThe researchers listed each client's concerns as identified by the counselor. Concerns were listed in the order that they were identified in each counselor's case notes. The researchers coded each concern by identifying it with the session number in which the concern occurred and with the total number of sessions completed by each client. The same concerns often appeared in the case notes of several different sessions for the same client and were counted each time. This process resulted in a list of 607 concerns from case notes of 248 counseling sessions, which were then classified (according to the system described in the following section) and counted to determine their frequencies.Classification SystemThe categories in a content analysis system should be completely exhaustive and mutually exclusive (Holsti, 1969). …