CAREER COUNSELING WITH
ADULTS
Emerging Adults;
Young adults from 18 up to age 30) are especially
in need of relationship support and space to
develop autonomy and competence as they
transition from college to career.
Many older adults continue to need and seek
career counseling even into late adulthood(adults
65 years and older).
Career change is a developmental as well as
situational expectation at the adult stage of life
Adults may have particularly difficult times with
their careers and career decisions when they find
“themselves unhappy in their work yet feel
appropriately ambivalent about switching
directions”
Developmentally, some adults have a
midlife career change that occurs as they
enter their 40s
and what Erik Erikson described as a
stage of generativity versus stagnation.
At this time, adults may change careers as
they become more introspective and seek
to put more meaning in their lives.
Situationally, adults may seek career
changes after a trauma such as a death,
layoff, or divorce.
There are two dominant ways of working with
adults in career counseling:
1; The differential approach
2 ; The developmental approach
1 ; The differential approach stresses that “the
typology of persons and environments is more
useful than any life stage strategies for coping
with career problems”.
It avoids age-related stereotypes, gender and
minority group issues, and the scientific and
practical difficulties of dealing with lifespan
problems. “At any age, the level and quality of a
person’s vocational coping is a function of the
interaction h.
2 ;developmental approach examines a
greater number of individual and environmental
variables. “The experiences people have with
events, situations and other people play a large
part in determining their identities .
Developmental life-span career theory
proposes that adults are always in the process
of evaluating themselves in regard to how
they are affected by outside environmental
influences (e.g., spouse, family, friends) and
how they impact these variables.
Adult career counseling;
Adult career counseling focuses on a
combination of six elements:
1. developmental,
2. comprehensive,
3. self-in-group,
4. longitudinal,
5. mutual commitment,
6. multimethodological.
These elements work together in the
process of change at this stage of life.
