Kevin Stoltz

I like to discuss my work with students aspiring to become faculty members. I believe that I am a good source of career development information. One day while working with one of my doctoral students I mentioned this blog. She became very interested and asked about its content. As we talked she came up with an idea and I asked her to write about it. I liked her reflections so well that I asked her to contribute to my blog. The blog that follows are her reflections on the career development. I found this amusing and insightful.

I think while researching career development with my doctoral program advisor, I came up with the idea that career choice and decision-making is similar to romance and choosing one’s life partner or spouse. There are many facets to each of these areas, what you might even refer to as “roles” in one’s life. As is the case for anyone looking for a mate, finding a proper career, one that makes you feel “fulfilled” and happy, is no easy matter. It involves time, effort, compromise, self-sacrifice, experimentation, and pain. It can also involve contentment, success, even intense excitement. How one can attain the more positive aspects of career choice and development is also much the same as one who wants to find that special someone, a person whom they can love (or tolerate!) for the rest of their lives. Of course, finding the answer to this dilemma is no easy matter. If you can entertain this idea, imagine that answering your own career questions can be like, well, dating…

Have you ever dated a dud? Your definition of dud could include a variety of things. I will insert my definition here – a person who seems to do a litany of irritating, irresponsible, or unsavory things. I’m talking about a guy who continually forgets your birthday even though you remind him about it daily beginning two weeks before the big day. This is the guy who forgot his wallet on your first date and asks you to cover the bill, and who also forgets the second and third (if there is a third date) as well. The guy who calls you less than flattering nicknames in an attempt to be cute and make you feel flattered, but which are actually insulting (e.g. “my sweet, pudgy bunny”), etc. Or even more sinister, the fellow who, after dating you for several years, grows to take you for granted and spends many a night partying at the bars and then acts surprised and disheartened when you refuse to put up with his bachelor-like antics and break off the relationship. To put it in the wise words of Beyonce, “If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it!”

Or maybe it is neither of the aforementioned situations. Maybe he is a nice chap who treats you well, like a woman should be treated. It’s just that nasty spinach that constantly gets stuck in his teeth that he is never aware of but somehow the whole world sees. The kind that sits there and decays, turning into a smell so bad you’d think dragons from Hogwarts School were flying out of his mouth that only Harry Potter could kill. And yes, I am writing “man” here, but these types of situations can all certainly apply to female love interests as well, and to gay or lesbian couples. And please do not mistake what I said earlier. Men do not always have to foot the bill on dates. : )

When putting this relationship into the context of career development, please relax and imagine your answers to the following questions: Have you ever held a job where the work itself involved menial, annoying tasks which made you feel as though the job itself was completely useless and that it had no impact on your life and career whatsoever? That it was good only as much as the meager amount of money it proclaimed you were worth when you got that thin slip of paper called a paycheck? Or maybe the job itself wasn’t so bad, but your boss was. Your boss who would leave insulting notes on your desk saying things such as, “This summary report is a load of junk. Why are we even paying you anything at all? You should be paying us for having the privilege of keeping our seat warm! You have a degree? An ape could have written this report!” Okay, so maybe your boss did not actually write this note. But I bet there has been at least one time when your boss, a coworker, etc. has made you feel like that. (If not, then let me know where you work and I will apply there!) Or maybe the job is fine, not your cup of tea, but tolerable, and your supervisor is nice, along with all of your coworkers, clients, etc. It isn’t them – it’s you. And by you I do not mean something is wrong with you – perhaps you just have not found the right job. Perhaps it is even more terrifying. Perhaps you have not found the right career.

As counselors, we are always looking for ways to relate to our clients and help them see the successes they achieve in life. Many career clients come to me with stories of failed career starts, difficulty in maintaining interest, and feelings of not be appreciated beyond the status of a warm body. Drawing attention to clients other life roles and possible successes in those areas can be an important way of encouraging clients to continue to make movement on career issues. Leaving a relationship or work situations when you are just “comfortable” is always painful and difficult, but the rewards can be exhilarating!!!

Rebekah Reysen is a doctoral student at The University of Mississippi, Counselor Education Program. Her area of strongest interest is career issues related to women. She would love to read your reactions to her lamentations about career dating!

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.

Kevin Stoltz

Last time I left you with a quick sketch of Adlerian counseling and suggested using the theory in career counseling. In this blog I will outline an example to better communicate these ideas. Now, on to Alan! Alan, is not a real client, but represents an amalgamation of a few clients that I worked with several years ago. Alan was a white male aged 24. He did not graduate from high-school and was working in construction jobs for which he held very little interest. Alan was in jail 2 times for selling drugs and he was recently released. He was referred by a friend of his that told him I could help him get a better job. “Don’t you just cringe when former clients build you up like that!?”

Well, Alan and I talked for awhile and I finally got around to asking him what he liked about his former jobs. He paused for a moment and then began telling me what he liked about selling drugs. I was surprised that he conceptualized this as a job or even a career. I thought, now this is a creative fellow that understands the work task. We immediately began focusing on what exactly he liked about this “job”. He told me that it was a challenge at first; that he had to get people to trust him and have confidence that he was good to his word. He liked the challenge of convincing his customers. I asked Alan if he would tell me more about his early life. He agreed.

Alan, was the youngest and second born and consistently was held in low esteem to his older brother. Everything Alan did was compared to his older and “perfect” brother. In school, teachers would make this comparison. At home neighbors would make this comparison. Yet, in all of this Alan loved to try to change people’s minds about him. He would never stop trying to convince others that he was capable. Alan reported this early recollection: “I remember when I was about 10. My older brother and I were in a store and I got the idea to shoplift some candy. I took the candy and put it in my pocket and began walking out the door. The sales clerk stopped me and questioned me about the theft. I was able to convince the sales associate that I and my brother were very poor and did not have the money to pay for the candy. The sales associate allowed us to leave with the candy. I remember being happy and feeling powerful because I got away with it.”

Although I saw some negative behaviors here, I looked for some positive and how his striving could be applied to socially interested effects in society, especially in the work life task. I was first struck by Alan’s narrative concerning liking to convince his customers and gain trust. In his early recollection, he also exhibited the desire to convince the sales clerk of a lie. Persuasion is a key element in Alan’s relationships with people. I immediately informed him that persuasion is a key ingredient in several careers. He reacted with disbelief! He said that he found it hard to believe that careers would sanction lying. I corrected his restatement and said it is not lying that I am talking about; it is persuading others and building a sense of need in others that may not necessarily be there. We talked a long time about this concept. Now, I must say that this challenged my value system. I am not a big fan of selling people things they do not need, but I calmed my conflict with saying that if he involved himself in selling things that were less harmful than drugs, then I was doing a better service for this client and society. A small rationalization, but my goal was to begin to broaden the way he applied his skills to work.

In a later session, he took an interest inventory and came up with his highest score in Enterprising. I related his high score to the content of the the early recollection and early sessions. We used the score to enhance our discussions concerning his lifestyle and what he thought he needed in a career. Alan’s face demonstrated a big surprise and he stated that he did not realize this as a talent that could be applied to “real work”. This was a turning point for this client. He began to understand his need, which was to persuade people and get them to believe in him. He realized his lifestyle goal (having prestige) and final fiction (having to have others think my way).

Once Alan realized this and how it was driving him in a non-socially interested way. He was able to begin looking at work in a different way. He saw that he could apply his skill and talent in other contexts. He became very interested in law and politics, but eventually decided to pursue a sales and marketing career.
This case demonstrates the unconscious aspects of lifestyle and fictional goals. Because they are unconscious to the client these goals can be manifested in destructive or constructive ways. Helping the client understand the goals and learn that there are positive aspects for applying the lifestyle in work is an important aspect of Adlerian counseling.

I hope this blog helps to bring out the use of Adlerian theory within the process of career counseling. Let me know what you think!

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.

Kevin Stoltz

When I speak of using Adlerian concepts in career counseling I tend to get very strange looks even from the Adlerian counselors. I just smile and yes, you heard me correctly! Adler did talk about work as one of the 3 life tasks and he recognized that work has a central social role for adults. Following this line of thinking some Adlerians developed concepts to assist individuals in career selection. McKelvie (1979) wrote about the practice of career and life planning from an Adlerian perspective. He discussed the role of assessing lifestyle and helping the client to make career decisions using elements from the lifestyle. Watkins (1984a) wrote an excellent article outlining the use of Adlerian concepts to create a theory of Adlerian counseling. This article outlined several principle corollaries that help organize the theory into a framework for understanding the use of Adlerian ideas in career development. A central tenant is how lifestyle interacts with career decision making and the social role of work.

More recently, Savickas (1998; 2002) developed the careerstyle interview. This interview sequence is used in career counseling and represents the integration of Super’s (1990) life-span, life-space theory, Holland’s (1992) matching theory, and Adler’s (1979) individual psychology. Specifically, one of the interview questions concerns the collection of 3 early recollections. Savickas explains that these memories help to develop a theme of challenges for the individual. These challenges play out in all the life roles discussed by Super, including work. Thus, by understanding our themes we are better able to navigate exploration and decision making in the work life task.

The theme is not determined by the counselor alone. Adlerians use a collaborative democratic process to arrive at an understanding of the themes. Once identified, one very important aspect of counseling is understanding that the theme is related to the striving for superiority. Often, misunderstood, striving for superiority is not competition with others; that would not be a socially interested striving. The striving centers on the individual trying to emerge from a feeling of inferiority to feeling competent and productive. A focus on contributing to the social system is inherent in this striving. However, the striving can be over utilized and under utilized. This is often the case in experiencing difficulties in social relationships. People tend to use strengths all the time in an unconscious process trying to realize an expected result. This is called the final fiction or the expected positive outcome. So helping people understand the striving is a key element in Adlerian career counseling, because we help the client understand her/his use of the striving to meet fictional goals.

This process can help individuals chose a career, function in a career, and address problems in a career. It is a useful approach for the career adaptability paradigm that is being explored in much of the career literature. I realize that this is a quick and rough sketch. Perhaps a case will help to illustrate some of this approach.

Stay tuned for Part II!!!

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.

Kevin Stoltz

This blog will have a more personal tone than some of my earlier ones. I believe it is typical of counselors to process our experiences in several of our life roles, and I will process my recent experience in my life role as a son and counselor. Over the holidays, like many people, I planned and executed a visit to my family. I have lived away from my home city for several years and so this visit is more a responsibility that a desire. However, I fulfilled my responsibility and had an unexpected experience too!

My father, who is 85 years old, can no longer see well due to macular degeneration. Actually, he is now legally blind. His hearing has also faded over the years. As a veteran of WWII he believes that his hearing loss is due to the ships guns. He is only now beginning to tell these stories of his war experiences. I often wonder why he held back these many years. But, I digress.

My father was an auto parts and hardware traveling sales representative. He traveled a large region in the mid-west. One of his ways of relating to new people is to ask about their home town and he can often recite restaurants and businesses that he traded with in some very obscure areas. My father, according to Holland (1992), has many elements of the Enterprising personality. In addition, he was a motion picture operator and electrician in the navy during WWII. He held on to these Realistic interests and he would tell you that is why he chose to sell auto parts and hardware. These items matched his personality of working with things.

When my father retired 20 years ago he talked about playing golf everyday and living a life of leisure. That lasted a few years but gave way to boredom. He began to busy himself with those realistic and enterprising activities again. At 72 years, he was known in the neighborhood as Mr. Fix It. My father’s neighbors’ knew me from my annual visits and would always comment how helpful he was and how he could fix anything at their house. He is very engaging with people and everyone in the neighborhood knows him. That enterprising part of him is very pronounced. So for very many years he was the person in his neighborhood that people could call when they needed work done on the car or house. These were great activities that engaged his “work” personality and helped him to feel useful and involved.

As his eyes began to dim and it became harder for him to hear he began to do less. He knew he could not do the small jobs well if he could not see. Additionally, as his hearing got worse he found it harder to relate to people. However, he scaled back and tried to adjust. Over my last few visits he has become more disabled due to vision loss. He can no longer work on projects. It is hard to see this important part of his personality become less engaged. He often just sits now, when this was never his way before.

Although he has slowed down on the projects, he continues to be engaging and tries to talk to everyone. He still has that Enterprising drive to meet new people and try to pull others into a conversation.

Interestingly, I have found that I am beginning to consult with him more on my own Realistic projects. This is a way for us to talk a common language. I spent several years in the construction industry and we can speak a common language at times. I was recently building a garage for a friend and had to assemble the garage door. My father talked with me about the project and called me both before and after the completion. During my recent visit we talked about how I assembled it and he related a story of watching a crew replace his garage door. He was able to talk about very critical and minute details. His memory was strong and he knew the process and details from simple observation through his blurry eyes.

It was this experience of seeing his personality so clearly that helped me to come to know my father more. The Holland codes were alive and well in viewing him in his retirement. I have thought a lot about gerontological counseling since the visit with him. I am very ignorant to the subject, but wondered if knowledge of the Holland codes would be of use to counselors working with retirees. I always understood the use of Holland’s system in looking forward at a career. I seem to have had a new experience by using them in looking back over my father’s life. I have come to understand a great deal about him via Holland’s ideas.

I guess I never really thought about a career typology following one into retirement, how about you?

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at The University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.

Kevin Stoltz

Research indicates that children develop ideas about career much earlier than was previously thought (Hartung, Profeli, & Vondracek, 2005). According to Gottfredson (2002), children become aware of power in relationships and occupations at age 3 to 5 years. At 6 to 8 years old, children begin to identify gender with occupations and begin to associate prestige with careers around the age of 9 to 13. All of these developmental stages can be seen in the activities of children, and one of the major activities of children is play.

Play is a central activity in children’s early life. Play is an exploratory activity that helps the child to learn about the world. Watching play is a way to understand children’s emerging schemas of the world around them. This is a major tenant of Play Therapy. Embedded in this play are glimpses of career development. Children are experimenting with many behaviors and activities that represent the raw materials of the Holland codes. I say raw materials here to emphasize that children are developing throughout childhood and these personality traits, outlined by the Holland codes, are emerging in the child’s activities and environment. However, Tracey (2002) demonstrated that the Holland circular structure did not fit well with children. Theories posit that these themes emerge through development by a process called differentiation. Children begin to learn about their personal skills, values, and interests as they grow and differentiate themselves. It is this aspect of career development that is not often emphasized in counseling with families.

School counselors are well aware of early childhood career development. Many curricular and guidance activities are focused on helping young children explore skills, values, and interests. These activities are designed to help students understand themselves and the world of work at developmentally appropriate levels (Colozzi, 2008). However, counselors working with children and families rarely include career concepts into the counseling process. Of course, these clients come to a counselor with specific difficulties or problems. In addition to social, emotional, and cognitive develop, there are aspects of career development that can be impacted by these issues. Helping parents understand the implications of developmental issues is an important part of helping children and families. Developing difficulties relating to others not only impact children’s current functioning, but also may affect how they explore their environment. Curtailing exploratory behavior can lead to withdrawal (Super, 1990). This withdrawal can limit children’s options for learning new activities that can lead to new interests. Assisting parents with strategies and plans to engage the child and increase exploratory behavior would be an important intervention.

Sometimes we fail to see exploratory behavior in activities. Now, I am not a big computer gaming advocate for children, but what does this activity have to offer children from an expression of interests perspective? Certainly, fine motor skills and memory are being exercised. In addition, planning and executing strategies for playing the game are involved. Also, we can see strivings for power, prestige and superiority in many of the games. How can these activities be conceptualized to represent positive aspects for personality? One example may be that striving for power or influence is a trait of the enterprising (E) personality category of Holland. Perhaps, parents can learn how to reflect this as an interest to children that seem focused on computer gaming. Assisting children to explore other enterprising characteristics like debating, selling, and political persuasion may be good additive activities for children that express their interests in gaming. Certainly, there are other ways to interpret children’s gaming behavior. It is a very individualized process, but, one that can be addressed in working with children and families.

I have come to believe that all behavior has purpose and meaningfulness to the individual. Children are not exempt from this “law of movement” (Adler in Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1957). Play, a primary activity in children’s lives, has meaning; our job is to see the goal and support the positive aspects of the developing purpose.

Have you seen the career meanings in children’s play?

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at The University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.

Kevin Stoltz

In working with people from different employment backgrounds, the topic of meaninglessness in work inevitably enters into the discussion. I have heard clients utter statements concerning meaninglessness numerous times in counseling sessions and have even uttered this myself on occasion. However, this is not to say that such statements should be taken lightly or without serious concern. There are countless reasons for saying these comments or assertions and they can reflect a sense of being lost or discouraged in how one contributes to a greater endeavor. This is yet another example of how “career” counseling can intersect with mental health work.

According to Yalom (1980) people must develop a sense of purpose in their life. This is one of the foundational tenants of existential theory and the theory applies to career work. Cohen (2003) wrote an excellent conceptualization of using existential theory in career decision making. Specifically, he mentioned the self-questioning that clients experience. Questions like; does this work provide me with an authentic expression of myself or does this work provide meaning to the world? In the throes of personal evaluation these types of questions can be difficult to answer and may lead to an increase in anxiety or exacerbate other mental health conditions. These types of reflections can also increase work dissatisfaction and cause clients to become stagnant and uncreative. However, there is another side to this experience: a side that counselors can bring to the session.

In the constructivist perspective, counselors look for the opportunities that exist in the client’s dilemma. Reflective questions such as “what is this dissatisfaction telling you” or “how could you tell if you were involved in meaningful work”, would be helpful responses to assist the client in exploring or re-authoring the experience. Part of the re-authoring might include helping a client find “spirit at work” (Kinjerski & Skrypnek, 2008 p. 319). Kinjerski & Skrypnek (2008) discussed the concept of “spirit at work”. They defined this as a sense of contributing to society, feeling good about the contribution, and having a sense of harmony with personal contribution. Helping clients become more self-affirming is an important focus of career counseling in the 21st century (Savickas, 1997). Focusing on the personal meaning of work and more importantly, the personal assessment of how work is rewarding is a good first step in this process.

A colleague talked with me recently about mountains of meaningless paperwork and the time it took away from his/her clients. Additionally, my colleague discussed the organizational environment, questioning if (s)he could survive for the next few months. I first asked “how have you survived thus far?” This colleague replied that hoping for change was the primary source of his/her survival. Yet, that hope of “external” organization change had expired. He/she was left without a way to cope with the feelings of meaninglessness and hopelessness in these circumstances. I knew that the colleague had made plans for a career change and that surviving the last few months was important. It was clear to me that survival was the goal. I mentioned that although survival was important, it was only a step in the thriving process. Suddenly, my colleague recognized that survival, previously thought to be arduous agony, was now a way to re-conceptualize a meaningless experience and realize a purpose in the next few months of work.

Counselors have used reframing and other techniques to assist clients undergoing difficult change. Understanding the meaning and suffering that we humans experience in and out of the work place is an important task. Helping clients take the suffering and re-story it into a meaningful endeavor is yet another way counselors can had a positive impact on client’s lives. This can have constructive and affirming affects for client’s work lives.

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at The University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.

Kevin Stoltz

Too many times I have limited my thinking of the use of technology in career counseling to the administration of assessments, job search services, and career research strategies. Recently, I was confronted with a much more difficult case and was able to bridge a cultural gap by using several tools available on the internet during my meeting with this international individual. I was able to learn a great deal on how to utilize technology to fill in communication gaps regarding a language and cultural barrier.

The person was from Japan and could speak basic English. She had been in the United States for a short time and was taking classes to improve her speaking and comprehension. The individual consulted with me concerning difficulties she was having with not wanting to stay in the US and finish her degree program. She had been experiencing much anxiety about trying to decide to return to Japan and giving up her original career plan. Our first encounter was an attempt to get to know each other and for me to gain a greater understanding of her difficulty. I have travelled extensively and I know that I often run into communication difficulty with non-native English speaking people.

I tend to have a habit of using a lot of metaphors when I talk and this is often confusing for non-native English speakers. Since I knew this about myself, I openly discussed this with this individual. I asked if it would be okay for me to use the dictionary and other internet resources to help us more fully communicate. She also used a Japanese to English electronic dictionary to aid her in communicating and understanding. We first made sure we understood what metaphors were and that we could relate metaphors from one culture to another. This actually became easier as we typed phrases into the internet and used pictures and other media to more fully understand the metaphors. An example of a metaphor with which we worked to find a common meaning was “when someone talks out of both sides of their mouth”. We found many fun and interesting symbols and pictures to represent the phrase on the internet.

As we talked and used the electronic resources, she began to risk more with me concerning her desires to return home. I asked her to talk with me about her home. She was from a large city in Japan and I was able to use the internet to find pictures and read about her home city. This helped her describe her home to me and she was able to relate more about why she wanted to return home. In summary, we were able to use these electronic resources to develop a greater understanding of each other and enhance the meaningfulness of our communication.

I have been one that usually dislikes technology as entertainment or for online counseling. I have experienced technology as a barrier to developing a counseling relationship and more recently in teaching online courses. I usually view technology as a necessary tool. However, after my experience with this individual, I now see technology in a different light. I was able to use technology to enhance the counseling relationship and gain better understanding of this person. Office technology can be a critical resource for helping people understand each other. Really, I credit the technology for adding much clarity to our conversation.

What are your views of incorporating technology into your counseling with clients especially cross cultural counseling?

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at The University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.

Kevin Stoltz

Okay, every adult had a childhood and in that childhood we used to play. Many of those play themes had to do with work. Specifically, I played with cars under a large tree in our backyard. Much of the play themes centered on me traveling from house to house visiting people and building lakes and bridges. We also daydreamed and had specific characters from books, movies, or television that had special meaning for us. One of mine from early childhood was the Lone Ranger (Yes, I am old enough to have watched the series in black and white on a real black and white television!). But, I digress. The meaning of the Lone Ranger had special significance to me. I saw this man as an ethical person that was concerned about the world and society from which he came. However, there was a down side to his drastic independence; he had very little connection to the society that he spent his life trying to protect. In many ways I lived this theme in my early work life.

I travelled over the entire US for a large corporation attempting to teach and help people install building products in accordance with architectural specifications (Okay, no silver bullets, but remember we are talking themes here!). Interestingly, my father was a sales representative and traveled throughout my entire childhood and adolescence. In my personal story you should be able to see some occupational image begin to arise. I saw myself as a very independent person and desired to be exploring the world and connecting with people for brief periods of time to be of help or assistance. Who was that masked man? Well, as you may guess, I eventually came into an occupational crisis. I wanted to have more connection, but this was difficult in that I was away so much that I did not even know my neighbors. Additionally, the position I held was more focused on things rather than helping people. This crisis led to a new career search and I wound up in the profession of Counseling. I still get to travel, I have a position that allows me to meet people and be of help, and I get to have more permanent relationships in my life. I am hoping that with my brief autobiography that you can see that my occupational image from childhood is still alive and well in my adult life. Even with all its pitfalls and struggles, my occupational image is mine and I have learned a great lesson from understanding more about this part of my early learning and experiences.

So what does this have to do with counseling? The narrative literature is focused on having clients tell stories and then counselors helping the client to narrate changes in that story. This process is used in career counseling, most notably by Mark Savickas. In his writing he posits a semi-structured interview called the Careerstyle Interview (Savickas, 1998). Specifically, one of the questions is about role models and who you wanted to pattern your life after. This and other questions help to form the individual’s occupational image that each person develops throughout childhood. It is this image that helps us succeed, yet it may also lead us to crisis. Understanding occupational images helps clients to understand their own values, morals, and interests. In addition, the occupational image may assist the client in understanding why he or she moves through life and especially work life in a specific manner. Exploring the early memories of clients in a broader context, like play themes, heroes, experiences and activities, and daydreams can coalesce into a full picture of values, interests, and even personality traits. Relating these to the world of work and asking about early views of worker roles helps to round out these occupational images. I have found that these types of discussions and focused interactions with career clients are extremely effective and help to further articulate more traditional assessment approaches.

I am interested in reading your thoughts about using occupational images in your work with clients. As I sit and read over this blog I can still “hear the thundering hoof beats of the great white horse silver”, yes, “the Lone Ranger rides again”!

What are your occupational images?

Kevin Stoltz is counselor and an assistant professor at The University of Mississippi. He specializes in career counseling and Adlerian Psychology and has a strong interest (no pun intended) in early recollections related to work life.