TESTING MODELS OF COUNSELOR DEVELOPMENT WITH A MEASURE OF

COUNSELING SELF-EFFICACY
Melchert, T. et. al., Journal of Counseling & Development, July/August 1996, Volume 74 pp.
477-486

Nilrose S. Estardo
MAGC-1
March 12, 2016

ABSTRACT
As Kuhn (1996) described a paradigm as a set of practices that define a scientific
discipline at any particular period of time. Paradigm is a conceptual model that is widely
accepted in a practice community and usually is the prevailing view of best practices.
In the 21st century, the post-modern world is characterized by globalization and
unpredictable fast changes. It has brought a new social arrangement of work wherein jobs are
mostly offered in a temporary assignments or time-limited projects as compared to the 20 th
century wherein jobs were offered on a permanent and stabled tenure.(Kalleberg, Reskin &
Hudson, 2000). These employees are called temporary, contingent, casual, contract, freelance,
part time, consultant and self-employed. This transformation of labor force has affected nearly
half of the workers in the United States alone (Kalleberg, 2009). Nowadays, in the knowledge

societies, individuals must realize that career problems are just a portion of larger concerns
about how to live a life in a postmodern world shaped by a global economy and supported by
information technology.
The two major paradigms for career interventions in the 21 st century were vocational
guidance and career education. Through these paradigms the constructs of identity, adaptability,
intentionality and narratability contribute to the formulation of a new model for comprehending
vocational behavior the career construction theory (Savickas, 2005b). Life design intervention
focuses on stories because these are the construction tools for building identities and careers
out of complex social interactions. The more stories they tell, the more clients develop their
identities and careers.
There are five subcategories under Life Design: A Paradigm for Career Intervention and
these are the: construction (individuals

when dislocated from their current stories, began

narrative processing of their biographies); reconstruction (narrative processing of identity

constructions gathers micronarratives about important incidents, recurrent episodes, significant
figures, self-defining moments and life-changing experiences); coconstruction (having
reconstructed an identity narrative from the clients micronarratives, the counselor then presents
to the client a draft of her or his life portrait, including the occupational plot, career theme and
character arc); and, action (a revised identity narrative enables individuals to meet the
uncertainties of transition with comforts recalled from the past).

Body
This article provides powerful information and is comprehensible as well for readers. The
knowledge shared by the author is timely considering that nowadays, due to unstable global
economy, employees/workers are having difficulties adjusting their selves from permanent to
temporary jobs. The approach of this study plays a vital role for psychologists to people who are
greatly affected from frequent job transitions by providing career counseling to regain back their
self-confidence. Therefore, I consider this article as practical and educational.
In this study, the article Life Design: A Paradigm for Career intervention in the 21 st
Century discusses the two major paradigm of career intervention which are the vocational
guidance and the career education. The paradigm of vocational guidance is to enhance selfknowledge, increase occupational information, and match ones self to the occupation. The
paradigm for career education is to assess development status, orient the individual to
forthcoming tasks and develop ones attitude and competencies needed for the task.

Savickas theory Life Design: A Paradigm for Career intervention in the 21st Century in
career intervention provides helpful information because occupational prospects nowadays
seems to be predictable and job transitions are more frequent and difficult. These changes
necessitates workers to develop skills and competences that significantly differ from knowledge
and abilities required by 20th century. Therefore, career intervention involves construction,
deconstruction, reconstruction, and coconstruction.
The authors key idea on this article is that people in the 21 st century or so they called,
the knowledge societies in this modern world has become a part of the global economy and
workers therefore are required to learn how to cope with multiple job transitions during the
course of their work lives.
Various approaches and cites were applied by the author to support his theory on this
article/study such as the individualization of life course (Beck, 2002) which calls for a science of
intervention that deals with constructing a self and designing career; social constructionism and
identity (Guichard, 2009) and logical positivism and personality (Holland, 1997).
In this article/study, recommendation and criticisms were not found. Conclusion from the
author on the last part of this article which stated that paradigm of life design does not replace
but rather takes its place alongside the paradigms of vocational guidance and career education.

Conclusions and Implications

The article provides helpful, beneficial as well as useful information in the lives of the
working force in our society. The author has delivered his concepts in a timely mode which is
comprehensible, vivid and interesting for my part as a reader.
This study plays an important guide in my career especially when providing counseling
on career intervention. The information supplied by the author is valuable and effective and I
agree with the authors major points and premises.
This article was written by the author in a scholarly manner that will capture the readers
attention because its content deals with our lifes course and expectation for we are all part of
the societys working force. For this reason, I am interested to further pursue in reading more of
the authors articles.
Overall Assessment
This article Life Design: A Paradigm for Career intervention in the 21st Century is
significant to me as a counseling practitioner in understanding the difficulties experienced by the
workers in adjusting and coping up with job transitions and providing the best counsel I could
extend on their end.