Building a Solution-Focused Strategy into Career Counselling

This article describes, in practical terms, a three stage, solution-focused strategy for career counselling. The strategy enables career counsellors to work effectively with the strengths and resources of clients who seek help in adjusting to or selecting a satisfying, productive career or job. It is based on constructivist principles, is futureoriented and time efficient and is most relevant for use with career clients. INTRODUCTION Recent concern that the dominant trait-factor paradigm used in career counselling is less relevant to career clients who face dilemmas associated with their lives in a complex world of work, career and family (Brown & Brooks, 1996; Herr, 1997; Savickas, 1993) can be addressed by using counselling that incorporates constructivist principles. The benefit to career counsellors of incorporating constructivist principles in their work is that these principles allow them to move beyond general career decision-making and job searching and incorporate the client's unique work and career context. Using constructivist approaches in their work also allows counsellors to work with clients in a holistic manner where personal, emotional, family, social and career concerns are interconnected. The purpose of this article is to whet the appetite of New Zealand career counsellors and practitioners who wish to explore how one constructivist approach, solution-focused counselling, can help them work effectively with clients many of whom they may only see for one session. In a related article (Miller, 2003) I explored constructivist counselling approaches for career counsellors, presented a three-phase solution-focused model of career counselling and described ways that career counsellors might integrate systems thinking into their solution-focused work. This present article is developed from a workshop offered at a recent CPANZ conference and builds on the previous article by providing new exemplars of solution-focused techniques for career counsellors who want to work within a solution-focused Solution-building career counselling 3 framework. While these exemplars offer seemingly simple techniques that may appeal to career practitioners, the success of their use is dependent on counsellors grounding their practice in constructivist principles and an unfaltering belief in client resourcefulness to find their preferred solution. WHAT ARE CONSTRUCTIVIST PRINCIPLES? There are two main premises underlying constructivist approaches to effective career counselling. The first premise is that individuals create their own reality based on their understanding of, and participation in, their previous experience (Brown & Brooks, 1996). The reason this concept is so important to a new way of working with career clients is the recognition that, during a counselling interview, both clients and counsellors create different realities based on their own experiences and the meanings they derive from those experiences. When using constructivist principles to guide one's work, therefore, it behoves the counsellor to stand back from his or her own ideas, and encourage the client to make sense of his or her learning, knowledge, strengths and resources. Constructivist career counselling is therefore very respectful of clients as it enables them to interpret a problem and define their own recognisable goals (Granvold, 1996; Patton & McMahon 1999). The second premise is that clients’ whole environment, and the interactions within it, influence behaviour. The importance of this for career counselling is the recognition that the meanings a client gives to the influences of peers, family, education, employment opportunities on his or her career goals are pertinent to that client’s personal reality. These contextual meanings need to be included in any counselling interview as they form the basis from which clients construct personally meaningful and socially supportable career possibilities. Constructivist career counselling therefore requires counsellors to work ‘with’, rather than ‘on’, clients and to encourage the client’s sense of self-helpfulness. WHAT IS EFFECTIVE SOLUTION-FOCUSED COUNSELLING? Solution-focused counselling is a constructivist approach developed in the 1980s by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg (Berg, 1994; de Shazer, 1985;) for use in the personal counselling field. Their model, which is future-oriented and respectful of client diversity and contextual differences is very appropriate for working with career Solution-building career counselling 4 clients. Solution-focused counselling is a process of collaborative inquiry in which counsellors and clients selectively affirm the client’s best qualities to encourage client responsibility for the direction, evolution and management of their own, career goals. In solution-focused counselling it is essential for both client and counsellor to shift the main attention away from problems, (what is wrong) and towards possibilities and hope (what is wanted) (Friedman & Fanger, 1991). Thus, solutionfocused counsellors are more likely to inquire about what life might be like if the problem was solved than to spend time exploring the problem. Their work will also be influenced by the principle that change is more likely to occur when clients experience themselves as competent and successful and that motivation for change is more likely to occur when clients experience themselves as having agency (Durrant, 1995). The goal of the solution-focused career counsellor, therefore, is to provide the opportunity for clients to visualise themselves in their own idea of a positive career future. Because solution-focused counsellors believe in the ability of clients to use their own resources for solving their problems they are freed from having to think for the client and, instead, they adopt a stance of curiosity. Similarly, career counsellors who wish to use solution-focused approaches need to replace their role as advice-giver with a role of curious inquirer. When solution-focused counsellors adopt a stance of ‘not knowing’ they demonstrate recognition that the very act of asking questions influences the client’s reality. Thus, asking questions that anticipate client resourcefulness and competence helps clients recognise their own expertise and ability to help themselves. Examples of such questions include ‘how did you realise that? ’ or ‘what helped you decide that? ’ While many solution-focused techniques appear to be described as questions and specific types of questions are considered important to seed new ideas and help clients become aware of new distinctions (O'Hanlon and Weiner-Davis, 1989), their use alone does not constitute solution-focused counselling. To be effective, career counsellors need to be confident that they can also work with clients’ responses to their questions. Embedded in these responses are examples of clients’ selfhelpfulness and resourcefulness that enable them to realise their career goals. The examples in this paper, therefore focus on the development of solutionfocused questions and follow-up probes that may help clients explore the meanings of their responses. Solution-building career counselling 5 A SOLUTION-BUILDING STRATEGY There are a number of resources for use by counsellors who wish to explore solutionfocused frameworks and techniques (Berg, 1994; de Jong & Berg, 1998; Manthei, 1997; Quick, 1996). In this paper, I propose a three stage strategy for career counselling in a solution-focused manner. Stage one involves problem clarification and setting of a client identified goal. Stage two involves acknowledgement of the client’s context and resources. Important aspects of context may be related to the client’s past, present or future and resources and may include a variety of things such as: money, interests, expertise and skills as well as effort, motivation and time. In the solution-focused approach, details of context and resources are used to help clients identify, and emphasise, aspects of their self-helpfulness and of their own progress towards their goal. Stage three involves the co-construction of an achievable homework task or activity, relevant to the client’s strengths, successes and goal. This activity may involve the use of career information. The main concern is that it interacts with the client’s sense of purpose and that it will encourage a successful experience. Stage One: Problem clarification and development of client-identified goals In most career counselling, the counsellor is interested in what has brought the client to see the counsellor. In solution-focused career counselling, the client's construction of the problem and the preferred goal is listened to with care. Since counsellors are more interested in what is wanted than in what is wrong, questions at this stage include: 'What would you like to get out of this career counselling session? ' 'How do you think coming here today will help you? ’ ‘What is your goal in coming here today? ’ ‘What thoughts do you have about your goal? ’ Since the dominant paradigm of career counselling is trait-factor, many clients may respond to these questions with descriptions of their problems. They will expect that, in order for the counsellor to ‘help’ them, the counsellor will need to get full details about their problem or concern. The solution-focused counsellor, however, assumes that most clients are seeking a positive change in this problem and will Solution-building career counselling 6 respectfully shift the emphasis from problem to solution talk. To incorporate the constructivist principle of collaboration in this orientation towards change, however, there are implications for practice that counsellors must consider. The first is how to build a good working alliance with the client. The second is how to be respectful of the client’s need to describe his or her concern while shifting the emphasis towards solutions. Both issues can be addressed in the same manner. Solution-focused