Week 5

            The presentation on Living Room conversations by Joan Blades was an eye opening experience that afforded me to see how important it is for people to communicate with one another despite political, economic, and cultural differences. As career counselors and clinicians, relating to and empathizing with people of different backgrounds is something that is always strived in practice, which parallels some of the ideals brought about in “living room” conversations. How uninteresting would career counseling be if all clients that were seen were of a homogenous group, in terms of their background, socioeconomic status, and political affiliations? I believe that differences help with opening up one’s mind, which can lead to unbelievable outcomes of growth and development.

            According to Guindon and Hanna (2002) synchronicity is a new entity that is important to career development because it deals with looking at the outcome of one’s career pathway selection, as one filled with hope and unpredictability.  Overall, its idea fosters coincidental opportunities that open up for clients in tuned with one’s own personal circumstance. Synchronistic events seem to be crucial factors in a client’s career decision that usually come up during the career counseling process (Guindon & Hanna 2002). When I think about this phenomena, I think about how “chance favors only the prepared mind,” a quote by Louis Pasteur. Preparation in one’s career development will help people be ready to recognize and receive a good opportunity when it comes along. Once client’s figure out what it is they want in a career, and they have a sense of self, knowing their wants and needs, then when opportunities come along they are easily identifiable. Another words, the chance that an opportunity comes along that meets the desires of a client, is more prone to happen when he/she knows what it is that they are looking for. Clarity in one’s career development, essential, and should be a goal for client’s to expect from working on one’s career development with a counselor. Through guidance, clients should be shown ways to tackle indecisiveness, and investigate personality preferences in efforts to experience synchronicity.

In class the theory of work adjustment model was discussed, and I began to think about how this career development model can be applied to my life. According to this theory one must have a certain amount of satisfaction and satisfactoriness to remain in a job or occupation. Satisfaction is looked at how well a job meets the needs of an individual. Satisfactoriness is how well an individual meets the needs of the work place. I’ve worked as an emergency medical technician for several years, and I had low satisfaction because of the long hours, and the stressful nature of the job. I ended up quitting because the job was too inconvenient for my life style. From this analysis, I am able to see how important it is for people to consider if they are happy at a job, and if it is one that meets their needs.

Guindon, M. H., & Hanna, F. J. (2002).  Coincidence, happenstance, serendipity, fate, or the hand of God: Case studies in synchronicity.  The Career Development Quarterly, 50, 195-208.