مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Within the epistemological framework of social constructionism, LDC is an application of the Career Construction Theory (CCT; Savickas, 2013) to career counseling. With the goal of facilitating the construction of career plans through re-authoring narrative identity, the intervention begins with an exploration of the client’s life story using the Career Construction Interview (CCI; Savickas, 2011a), which is a semi-structured interview in which a practitioner inquires about five topics that form life themes and can inform decision-making about the current transition. The topics are: (1) role models for self-construction; (2) magazines, television shows or websites for manifest interests, (3) a favorite story from a book or movie for creation of the script of the next episode; (4) sayings or mottos for advice to self; and (5) early recollections for perspective on the present problem or transition. In the second session, the counselor helps the client construct a narrative that creates coherence to the life episodes previously identified. In a meaning co-construction process, the client is helped to identify a life theme, namely the core problem in his or her life and the solutions he or she has sought to solve it (Csikszetmihalyi & Beattie, 1979). The understanding of this thematic core is essential in enabling the client to construct a self-narrative endowed with continuity and coherence (Savickas, 2011a). As life themes in the vocational domain are expressed in relationships between needs, interests, and goals, the counselor’s task is to support the client in elaborating on the episodes of his or her life story to create an understanding of the role of precociously structured needs (past) in the definition of goals and plans (future) that allow for the fulfillment of those needs. Clients are also helped to understand how their interests (present) are instrumental to the achievement of goals and, consequently, the fulfillment of needs (Savickas, 1995).

Finally, the third session of the intervention is focused on the establishment of connections between life themes and career plans. The construction of realistic plans, that are not limited to the role of worker, is facilitated. In this manner, more than a simple career plan is developed; the client constructs a true life project, as one may project solutions for the global theme or themes of one’s life in several career roles (Savickas, 2013).

Throughout the three sessions the counselor provides a secure space in which clients are supported in the analysis of their subjective experience both to construct new meanings about themselves and to build new career intentions (Savickas, 2015).