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