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The Career Thinking Session: overcoming challenges and
working through limiting assumptions with clients
Dr Barbara Bassot
Svendborg 7-8th May 2014
OverviewBackground to the study
The model for the Career Thinking Session (CTS)
Theoretical aspects
The pilot project in brief
Further research
The findings
Implications for practice
Background
Originally part of the NICE project (University Network for Innovation in Guidance and Counselling in Europe)
Focus on innovative new approaches
Gave an opportunity to do some research into something new
Why a reflective approach?
We are all called to be reflective practitioners
My own particular specialism
A key theme in reflective practice is being open to challenging our own assumptions about our practice
Guidance and counselling is all about helping people to think about their future
Creating a space for reflection in career guidance practice – why?
Good investment of time – avoids ‘quick fix’ solutions
On-going development of practice in a changing world
Prevents stagnation
Making practice creative
Awareness of attitudes and values in decision making
Deeper examination of issues – to avoid assumptions
Systematic enquiry to improve and deepen understanding of practice
Reid & Bassot (2011) Reflection: A Constructive Space for Career Development in McMahon, M. & Watson, M. Career Counseling and Constructivism, New York: Nova Science
Residing in silence and wonder: career counselling from the perspective of ‘being’.
A purposefully reflective approach avoids rushing to solutions that close down the opportunity for more meaningful engagement. Hansen & Amundson argue for ‘felt presence’. As an example of a deeply reflexive approach to career counselling that is truly centred on the ‘client’, they write about ‘stillness, openness and undoing’.
Hansen, F.T. & Amundson, N. (2009) Residing in silence and wonder: career counselling from the perspective ‘being’. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 9, 1, 31-43
In the study:
I wanted to experiment with an approach that moved away from short term work for short term solutions.
I aimed to explore the potential for an approach which stayed with purposeful reflection, slowing the process down in order to construct a ‘safe transitional’ space (Winnicott, 1971) for meaningful career thinking.
The Career Thinking Session (CTS) Model
Origins in the work of Nancy Kline (1999)
Pioneered the theory and process of the Thinking Environment
Organisational development and coaching
Aims: to increase the quality of thinking through listening, and to challenge limiting assumptions (barriers to progression)
6 Steps in the process (Kline, 1999)
Step 1 ‘What do you want to think about?’
Step 2 ‘What do you want to achieve from the rest of the session?’
Step 3 ‘What are you assuming is stopping you from achieving your goal?
Step 4 ‘If you knew that ... What ideas would you have towards your goal?’ Finding the positive opposites
Step 5 Writing down the Incisive Question then posing it a number of times (the positive opposites to the bedrock assumption)
Step 6 What have we appreciated in one another? Appreciation keeps people thinking
‘Hunting assumptions’
Kline (1999)
Facts
Possible facts
Bedrock
‘Deconstruction and reconstruction’ (Savickas, 2011) which can lead to ‘perspective transformation’ (Mezirow, 1978; 1981)
Brookfield (1995)
Paradigmatic
Prescriptive
Causal
Pilot study
‘Is applying Kline’s thinking session model to career counselling useful?’
A qualitative approach
One retrospective (notes taken)
Three Career Thinking Sessions
All with adults
The three sessions were recorded, transcribed and analysed
Insights and questions from the pilot project
Some similarities with well known 3 stage models (e.g. Egan)
But clear differences – no action planning and clear focus on limiting assumptions
Kline uses the word goal, but this didn’t seem useful – the model needs further development
I needed to ‘stay with the model’ to see if it would work – and I felt it did!
Would it work with younger clients?
My own limiting assumptions
That the model would not work well with young people
That there would be lots of awkward silences
That they would find the reflective space too difficult and uncomfortable
That they might just say “I don’t know”
That my research would fall “flat on its face”
That this really is a model to use with adults only
‘Holly’ Step 1Disillusioned with her course at
college – no longer interested in health and social care
Interested in events management
Wants to think about a wide range of options e.g. going back to school to take academic subjects, going to university, doing an apprenticeship.
Step 2
Step 3 - Two roads
FactorsThe road to nursing
The course is boring
Not enough challenge
Lack of motivation
Lack of a sense of achievement
Will I get the grades I need to go to university?
The road to elsewhere (music, events management)
Doing something I enjoy
More interesting
More motivating
Fun
Exciting
The road to elsewhere – limiting assumptions
Facts
I haven’t done anything creative before, I’ve always done Science
Being a year behind, then taking a gap year and being two years behind
Money – nursing courses are paid for, other courses you have to pay for yourself
Possible Facts
There will always be people who are better than me
My parents are worried that I won’t get a job.
Bedrock
I’m not talented enough
Taking a diversion – emerging patterns
Looking back
What made her choose her current course and a future career in nursing? What else could she have done?
She didn’t choose to be a doctor “because I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I was good enough. Teachers tried to persuade me to apply for Oxbridge, but I thought I couldn't do it.”
Step 4 - Positive opposites
“If I knew I could be a doctor, how would that make me feel?
- Long silence
If I knew that I was talented enough, how would that change things for me?
Step 5 - The Incisive Question
How can I use my talents?
I’ll finish my course
I’ll do what I want to do
I won’t give up on my ideas
I’ll be confident
In the short term I’ll look at changing course
In the medium term I’ll take a gap year
In the longer term I’ll apply for a route (university, jobs, higher apprenticeship) into something I enjoy more and that will challenge me (e.g. events management)
Appreciation
“You kept asking me the same questions, so I really had to think about things. Each time you asked me the same question I had to think deeper and deeper as time went on. You made me think a lot – I really needed that.”
Implications for practice Navigating barriers to innovation: time
Beware of your own limiting assumptions when trying something new
CTS does not focus on goals and action planning like other staged models, but on the client’s limiting assumptions
Challenging limiting assumptions is not easy: for practitioners and clients, requires a high level of trust
Resist the imperative to identify problems and find solutions: reflection can’t be rushed
The most difficult part (I think) is helping the client to articulate the IQ
Thank you!barbara.bassot@canterbury.ac.uk
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