Carl Rogers, lovely man

I love Rogers' humanistic view that people are basically good or healthy, and that anything else is a distortion that can be put right. He believes that individuals have an innate urge to develop his or her potential, which is an optimistic but admirable stance in my opinion.

I agree that the counsellor should put their ego to bed in the counsellor/client relationship. We should attempt to achieve empathy when helping others. There is the issue however of the counsellor simply being a facilitator and non-directive. I underwent some free counselling sessions in my student past on the recommendation of a friend who had said that it made her feel good! So on that note I signed up for a gut-spilling session. I talked and talked and the lady would listen, and when she did not come up with any independent responses I was puzzled. I was so puzzled I kept going back repeating the same script in the hope that she might actually come up with a "solution". Half a dozen sessions further down the line I told her I did not have time to come back (because I had given up hope of getting a response from her). It was at this point that she gave me a hug (!!this is where the cuddly part of Carl comes in I suppose) and offered her one and only bit of advice, which I shall keep to myself because it's too revealing. Getting a hug from a stranger was weird, and had I recieved her wisdom in the first session I would not have gone back. This is what makes me sceptical of the Carl Rogers' approach. I cannot see where facilitating is effective in all cases.

The job...the new religion?!

Tom Hodgkinson writes that, "The idea of the 'job' as the answer to all woes, individual and social, is one of the most pernicious myths of modern society." He continues, "...the myth suggests to us that a 'good job' will offer us ample money, a social life, status and work which we will find 'rewarding.". However this is usually far from the truth. Unlike the weavers of the early eighteenth century who were in command of their own work patterns, we are subject to bosses who enslave us with long hours and low pay. We are, in fact, slaves to the job. The job, he claims, has even become a religion, all of which is the result of industrialisation and the Protestant work ethic.

I have to agree that the job has taken over the lives of many people. They accept long hours, low pay, losing a comparatively large chunk of their wages to the government, but somehow still feel proud just to be able to say "I am working." They do not see themselves as slaves, but think that they have no choice but to stick with their job or get a better one. Losing a job can have consequences on a person's mental health, men in particular who see working as their main role in life. People, both women and men have come to measure their own worth by their status of employment. We suspect that there must be a better way, but the pattern continues and indeed working conditions are getting worse as employers give less breaks, take risks with health and safety, pay relatively less for more hours work. The Trade Unions have lost the power they once had. Some employers refuse to let their workforce become part of a Union. This was, as far as I can remember the fault of Margaret Thatcher. In what should be a time of progress, as technology makes our lives easier, the working life has degenerated and in some cases is akin to a life in the old workhouses. Employers are authoritarian in their attitude. There is no excuse for taking a day off, not even being sick. They expect the employee to be flexible. They would prefer not to have to train anyone, because it is cheaper if someone else takes care it. Canteens are becoming a thing of the past as is subsidised food. We are indeed suffering from, "a brutal, standardized work culture,...". This is why many people have gone abroad, in the hope of finding a better way of life where work plays a less significant role and leaves ample opportunity for creativity and fun.

The unfortunate thing is that in the United Kingdom we have no choice. We need the wages to pay the rent, and to buy clothes and food. We are so busy just surviving that we have little time left to be creative about making money in other ways, as Hodgkinson advocates we should. The 'idle' way of life which he prescribes to, is only possible for very successful people such as famous rock stars or those who are already rich.

Consequently for us, the job rules. As Careers Advisers we will undoubtedly be spreading the religion of the job. We will be influencing young people to become part of the already enslaved workforce, or will we? Would it not be less pressurising to just tell them to develop their talents and creativity for their own sakes, and relate this loosely to a career where they may or may not make money? If there are no job opportunities for them, what should we tell them? Many Advisers tailor their guidance to suit the circumstances of the client. For some clients, it is acceptable to talk about a "gap year", to others an impoverished background makes this unthinkable.
Incidentally here is something which I think reinforces Tom Hodgkinson's point about the job giving value to the individual. Why are we being told to interview people who are employed as part of our study of Labour Market Trends. Surely being unemployed is just as much a part of Labour Market Trends. After all some very intelligent and experienced people are jobless.

The only constant is change....

From reading Donald Schon's piece on"The Crisis of Confidence in Professional Knowledge"a second time, I understand that he advocates a need for professionals to use reflective practice in order to deal with change. According to Schon, professionals themselves have identified the weakness of depending solely on professional knowledge; "On the whole, their assessment is that professional knowledge is mismatched to the changing characteristic of the situations of practice - the complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflicts which are increasingly perceived as central to the world of professional practice."

In my opinion the world is always changing, and whatever we gain as professional knowledge at University will never prepare us for everything that we will meet in practice. It makes sense that professionals should be prepared to be considering the effectiveness of their performance with regard to their clients, just as businesses need to be constantly watching the patterns of the market for evidence of change so that they can modify their behaviour to match market trends. As people, are we not always trying to improve ourselves and looking for ways in which to do it?

So this is a profession....?

I see the mistrust of professionals as a natural and evolving process. The period between 1963 and 1981 where Donald Schon perceives "The Crisis of Confidence in Professional Knowledge" was society awakening to the fact that not all professionals are worthy of the adjective "professional". Hardly a crisis, just things being put into perspective.

The spread of education coupled with the growing power of the media has opened peoples' eyes with the result that they can scrutinize their doctors ,dentists, lawyers, accountants, etc., to their hearts content. Given the bad press that some professionals are getting, it is little wonder if the public has a distrust of all of them.

The present government is on the same bandwagon, opting to put pressure on the professionals wherever possible,wanting to be seen to be acting on our behalf. Certainly not all professionals deserve this treatment and having to make themselves accountable in terms of targets and visible outcomes creates restrictions for those who simply want to be able to do their job properly. I think that "professional artistry" which Schon brings to our attention, has always been in the capacity of some professionals who have found that they could adapt no matter what.

If Career Guidance is becoming devalued as a profession it is because it does not market itself well. When was the last time anyone saw a Careers Adviser on television? There are other professions which have to outrank it in terms of usefulness to society.

Ivan Ellich... has to be the ultimate sceptic of professionalism. He recognises five illusions that professionals use to disable citizens. They have created a nation of consumers to whom they dictate what their needs as consumers are. Professionals manipulate the rest of society so that people see them as indispensable, and make them so by following the trends of the market. My favourite line is this, "Women or men, who have come to depend almost entirely on deliveries of standardized fragments produced by tools that are operated by anonymous others, cease to live human lives, and at best barely survive - even though they do so surrounded by glitter."
In other words professionals have been conditioning society, and change is inevitable the more people realise that this is the case. Still, I think he is just demonstrating a nostalgia for the days when we had to live without electrictity, running water, carpets, a change of clothes, etc., ...a few days on a far-off Scottish island might have changed his attitude!!!

If at first you don't succeed.....here is my second attempt at a blog!