Bloch Article

I was very intrigued by the role activity and discussion we had last week in class. Super’s theory focusing on roles throughout life stages is important to reference when someone is struggling with their career development and roles in life. I believe that self-concept really is at the core of career development and this activity helped me to better understand my own. I was surprised to see that after discussing it with my partner, I had greater roles in some areas than I thought, such as homemaker, a role usually only used to describe a married woman. I also had less of a role than I thought as a citizen, which opened my eyes to the importance of becoming more aware of the happenings in my country and local community.

Moving on to Bloch’s article (2005) about nonlinear dynamics and chaos and complexity theories, I again had a hard time grasping it until reading the case study example. In my undergraduate coursework I also had a hard time wrapping my head around the abstract qualities of post-modern thought. What I most understood is that Bloch does not see work disconnected from spirituality. According to Bloch (2005), without that connection one does not understand how they are contributing to a greater purpose and thus cannot have value in their career.  As I’ve said before, as a Christian, I agree that my relationship with God should permeate all areas of my life, including my career. However, my value comes from knowing that I’m fulfilling God’s purpose for my life, not my career itself.

The implications for practice section of the article was very applicable. What I thought was most important was the idea of helping to reduce the discomfort of chaos. What came to my mind was my mother’s career development narrative. At the age of 48, she completely switched careers because of cuts in the company she worked at for 30 years. This time of chaos was extremely difficult for her, but if the chaos theory was applied she could have been in this new career using her transferrable skills a lot quicker. Much like the case study described in Bloch’s article (2005), her distress was a sign of phase transition. Being able to apply this theory not only with the case study presented but with someone in my family really helped me to better understand it. However, I am still undecided on many of the other propositions in Bloch’s theory.

 Bloch, D.P. (2005). Complexity, chaos, and nonlinear dynamics: A new perspective on career development theory.The Career Development Quarterly, 53(3), 194-207.