Chaos in Practice: Techniques for Career Counsellors

Abstract

The chaos theory of careers emphasises continual change, the centrality and importance of chance events, the potential of minor events to have disproportionately large impacts on subsequent events, and the capacity for dramatic phase shifts in career behaviour This approach challenges traditional approaches to career counselling, assumptions about the importance of chance events, and the idea that counselling should aim to reduce career options to a rational and manageable set of logical choices. This new approach demands new techniques and tools to assist the counsellor and client. Four different techniques and exercises are outlined that are designed to assist a counsellor in applying chaos theory in practice. The techniques cover: reality testing; limits to rational decision making; using the media to illustrate non-linearity and chance events; and using forensic techniques to establish historic and contemporary patterns of influence on career behaviour.

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