Moscow City Psychological and Pedagogical Institute
N.S. Pryazhnikov
PROFESSIONAL
SELF-DETERMINATION.
Moscow, 1999
Pryazhnikov N.S. Theory and practice of professional self-determination. Tutorial. – M.: MGPPI, 1999. – 97 p.
The manual reveals the basic concepts of modern career guidance. The problematic plan outlines both traditional ideas about professional self-determination and new approaches. This manual is the first, theoretical part of the course “Professional Self-Determination”, the second part is “ Active methods professional and personal self-determination” is more aimed at getting to know the organization and planning of specific practical assistance to self-determination clients.
The manual is intended for students studying courses “Professional Self-Determination”, “Career Psychology”, “Psychologist in Education”, “School Career Guidance”, etc.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
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| 1.2. Development of career guidance in Russia and the USSR. | 6 |
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| 13 |
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| 2..2 Conceptual levels of assistance to a person in Professional and personal self-determination. | 15 |
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SELF-DETERMINATION. | |
| 28 |
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| 31 |
| ^ 4. SPECIFICITY OF CAREER GUIDANCE ASSISTANCE AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF SUBJECT DEVELOPMENT LABOR. | |
| 34 |
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| ^ 5. OPTANT AS A PROFESSIONAL SUBJECT AND PERSONAL SELF-DETERMINATION. | |
| 40 |
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Paradoxes of “subjectivity” in professional Self-determination. | |
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| 44 |
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| 47 |
| 48 |
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| 6.6. Types of professional consultations. | 56 |
| 6.7. Basic forms and models of career guidance assistance. | 58 |
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| 63 |
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| 63 |
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| HUMAN HELP ORGANIZATIONS | 70 |
| ^ PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL | |
| SELF-DETERMINATION. | |
| 70 |
| 73 |
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| 83 |
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| 86 |
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| Topics of coursework and diploma papers for the course “Theory and practice of professional self-determination” |
^ EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS
The cultural and historical meaning of the problem
To understand what professional self-determination is, it is useful to ask the question: when and where should career guidance arise? The first career guidance laboratories appeared in 1903 in Strasbourg (France) and in 1908 in Boston (USA). Usually the following reasons for the appearance of these first career guidance services are identified: the rapid growth of industry, the migration of people from rural areas to cities, the problem of finding work, the problem of selecting the most “suitable” people on the part of employers... But all these reasons are rather socio-economic... We are interested to understand what are the psychological reasons for the emergence of career guidance? What has changed in people's minds? -...
The main psychological reason for the emergence of career guidance is that it was during this period and in these countries that a significant number of people faced the problem of freedom of choice, which did not exist before (or was characteristic only of individual people who did not want to live according to a pre-established, patriarchal order).
^
1.2. Development of career guidance in Russia and the USSR.
You can see how the criterion of “freedom of choice” works, i.e. how the level of freedom in a given society correlates with the level of development of career guidance. Let's consider this using the example of our native Russia.
^ The first job search service in Russia appeared in 1897. (but only during the First World War these services acquired state status). In fact, this was not yet career guidance, but employment.
In a famous "The Penitent Encyclopedist" (1900) There was a section devoted to choosing a profession, with four typical choices: according to family traditions (it was common in Russia at that time); accidentally, thoughtlessly; by vocation; by calculation... Already before the revolution in Russia, magazines were published that contained information about professional education: “Student's Almanac”, “Address-Calendar”...
Even before the official opening of career guidance services in St. Petersburg, Professor N. Kireev helped young people free of charge in choosing a faculty and specialization at the university..., and a little later M.A. Rybnikova and I.A. Rybnikov transferred this initiative to some gymnasiums...
^ In general, democratic freedoms matured in pre-revolutionary Russia (it was “fashionable” to be considered a revolutionary, the whole society lived with expectations of change...) – Career guidance as an independent scientific and practical direction did not yet exist, but the conditions were created...
In Soviet Russia problems of labor, labor training, and later career guidance were the most important themes of Marxist ideology. A laboratory dealing with career guidance issues was created at the CIT (Central Institute of Labor, opened in 1921 on the direct orders of V.I. Lenin). Problems of career guidance began to be developed at the All-Ukrainian Institute of Labor (Kharkov), in the laboratory for choosing a profession at the psychophysiological department of the Kazan Bureau of NOT, at the Moscow Institute of Occupational Diseases named after. Obukhov and in other places. Back in 1922, the People's Commissariat of the RSFSR considered the issue of creating a bureau for choosing a profession for teenagers... N.K. Krupskaya was actively involved in issues of career guidance for youth.
The first professional consultation bureau appeared in 1927 at the Leningrad Labor Exchange. They immediately began training professional consultants. In schools, issues of career guidance (vocational selection) were dealt with by pedologists... In the 30s. The Central Laboratory for Vocational Consultation and Vocational Selection of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions began to develop a system of school career guidance. In 1932, a headquarters was created to coordinate research into problems of school career guidance.
Thus, during the NEP period and in the early 30s. career guidance was actively developing (no matter what populist historians say, there was real freedom in the RSFSR, especially if you compare young Soviet Russia with many other “civilized” countries of that time, where the colonial system, racism and apartheid still existed, where “blacks and people of color” were not yet allowed into “decent” places, etc.).
But already in 1936, the notorious Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On pedological perversions in the Narkompros system” was issued. Note that the attack on humanitarian sciences It started with career guidance. It was she who turned out to be the most vulnerable in the face of infringement of freedoms (and above all, freedom of choice...). In 1937 - the abolition of labor training at school and a sharp curtailment of career guidance work (something similar is happening now in the Russian Federation). Thus, during the period of Stalinist totalitarianism, career guidance actually related to the issue of freedom of choice was simply banned.
Only at the end of the 50s. The first dissertations on the problems of school career guidance began to appear. In the 60s (during the Khrushchev “thaw”) a career guidance group was organized at the Research Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogy of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR (headed by A.N. Volkovsky), a career guidance laboratory was opened at the Psychology Research Institute in Kyiv (headed by B.A. Fedorishin); The Scientific Research Institute of Labor Training and Vocational Training was organized at the Academy pedagogical sciences USSR - Scientific Research Institute of Maintenance and Production of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR (head - A.M. Golomshtok). Thus, during the period Khrushchev’s “thaw”, i.e. during the period of revival of some democratic freedoms in the country, there is a clear revival of career guidance. Unfortunately, the long break in the development of career guidance still largely left career guidance developments at a fairly simple (and even primitive) level.
During the years of Brezhnev's rule (from the mid-60s to the mid-80s), career guidance was not prohibited, but the level of development decreased even more. This was the time when at the official level they called: “The whole class to the farm!”, “... to the factory!”, “... to the Komsomol construction site!” In such calls, the first place was not the interests of the individual, but the interests of the national economy and the defense capability of the country... As a result of the infringement of many freedoms during this period, career guidance began to degrade.
True, since the mid-80s. in the country, even at the official and party levels, the need for significant changes began to mature, and above all, in terms of increasing freedoms. In 1984, the Decree of the CPSU Central Committee “Main Directions for the Reform of General Education and Vocational Schools” was issued, where special attention was paid to the development of labor training and career guidance for youth. During the period of Gorbachev’s “perestroika” quite a lot was done in this direction:
More than 60 regional Centers for Vocational Guidance for Youth (TSPOM) have been created, and in the regions there are many career counseling points - PKP (in the USSR State Committee for Labor, all this was supervised by O.P. Apostolov, who did a lot to revive domestic career guidance, and in fact, to establish school psychological service, which many people now somehow forget about...);
Active training of professional consultants began on the basis of the State Labor Committee (note that in the then USSR practical psychologists haven’t prepared it en masse yet!);
a course “Fundamentals of Production” was introduced in schools. Choosing a profession" (note that this was also one of the first psychological courses at school!).
there was a transition to better quality work (although there was little experience, experience was quickly acquired).
as a result, in 1986, a real public service for career guidance for youth was created with the prospect of further improvement;
Gorbachev's "perestroika" was replaced by the era of "democratic transformations", which began with the "revolution with the face of Rostrapovich" in August 1991. During this remarkable period, a lot was also done:
in 1992, the “Law on Education of the Russian Federation” was issued and funding for schools and especially career guidance was immediately sharply reduced (by this time many “smart and educated” people had already “understood” that there are things more important than education and some there is career guidance related to freedom of choice and self-determination...);
in 1991, the “Employment Law” was issued, where school career guidance was not prohibited, but it was actually transferred from schools to employment services (note that in the USA, for work in an employment office, the requirements for training specialists are noticeably lower than for specialists providing assistance to schoolchildren in planning their careers...);
Unfortunately, school career guidance was almost destroyed, which was aggravated by the ambiguity with its subordination: the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation actually abandoned career guidance (there was only enough money for foreign business trips for management), and in the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation and in the employment services subordinate to it, “work with youth” was designated as “additional service” (according to the principle: “the school is not under our control”);
Fortunately, individual local leaders (authorities) sometimes supported the leaders of the remaining Youth Career Guidance Centers, i.e. they were not allowed to “perish” in conditions of socio-economic absurdity;
fortunately, some heads of Employment Centers still delegated their career consultants to nearby schools, where they worked with high school students, receiving salaries from the Ministry of Labor (for this, such managers were punished more than once, but apparently, someone still had a professional conscience ...);
One example of inattention to school career guidance is the Second Congress of School Psychologists in Perm in 1995, in the program materials of which there was not a single mention of career guidance and professional self-determination, but a lot of space and time was devoted to psychocorrection, psychodiagnostics, psychotherapy and fashionable then “economic education” (this is in conditions of the collapse of production and general theft!...); Although it is clear that psychodiagnostics, psychocorrection, and psychotherapy make sense only when they help a person to self-determinate;
As a result, it turns out that in the 30s. career guidance was prohibited political means, in the 70-80s. – bureaucratic, and now (in the era of the “flourishing of democracy”) – economic (almost no funding)... All this allows us to be convinced that there is a certain dependence of the periods of flourishing professional self-determination on the level of real freedom of choice for the majority of the population of a given society... And this means that career guidance itself (and specific methods of career guidance assistance) must be planned and implemented taking into account this circumstance. For example, if the level of real freedom of self-determination in society is low, then this is reflected both in the position of many clients and in the position of professional consultants themselves, giving rise to special problems associated with awareness of oneself as a subject (or non-subject) of self-determination, with the desire (or reluctance) understand what is happening around, i.e. understand. in the “space” of what meanings one has to define oneself...
^ 1.3. The general logic of the development of career guidance in countries with
high psychological culture.
If we look at the example of France, we can conditionally identify the following stages in the development of career guidance - stages of changing the main emphasis in work (according to I.V. Mikhailov): in the 20s, the emphasis was on employment (consequences of the war, unemployment); in 40-50 years. – determining the professional suitability of clients using tests (the era of the global “testing boom”); since the 70s, the predominant direction has become “raising young people’s ability to make their own choices”... It is interesting that already in the 60-70s. As part of the “fight against testomania,” special private bureaus even began to appear, where future clients were taught how to “better” and “correctly” answer test questions and, as a result, appear more advantageously before employers...
Currently, in countries with a still low psychological culture, “testing is flourishing” (in more developed countries they are trying to shift the emphasis to individual professional consultations).
Analyzing American career guidance and “career psychology,” Yu.V.
True, in recent years, even in countries with developed psychological services, there has again been a certain return to universal testing... This is explained not so much by the emergence of some new reliable tests, but by the established idea of many bosses, customers and clients that only tests are a real scientific tool to help you choose a profession. Even in the development of the tests themselves, you have to “play along” with potential clients and customers. In this regard, A.G. Shmelev notes: “Any new test, no matter how scientifically advanced, under these conditions is very difficult to compete with “classical” methods, which have accumulated a huge methodological literature. Even new computer tests, which have a lot of objective advantages (for example, flexible customization options for a specific test subject - the properties of the so-called “adaptive testing”), have difficulty making their way and still cannot compare in popularity with “classical” methods. It is no coincidence that many examples of modern computer tests are nothing more than computer versions of the booklet, or “pencil-and-paper” methods that existed before them.”
In this situation, it is easier to “play along” a little with the client, boss or customer than to convince him. Moreover, tests still allow you to solve a number of problems: if used correctly, they can provide certain information about the client, with their help it is easy to form the client’s motivation for self-knowledge, etc. 1
Probably, modern career consultants should still prepare themselves for the inevitability of using career guidance tests, if only in order not to “complicate their lives” in useless “showdowns” with clients and bosses and to devote more time, talent and effort to a creative approach to their work ...
^ The evolution of professional
In general, we can distinguish approximately the following stages in the development of the issue of professional self-determination:
Specific adaptation stage– during periods of socio-economic disasters and mass unemployment (the main thing is to help “get a job”)...
Diagnostic and recommendatory. Based on the “three-factor model” F. Parsons: studying the requirements of a profession for a person is the first “factor”, studying a person’s qualities using tests is the second “factor”, comparing the requirements with the qualities of a person and issuing a recommendation on suitability or unsuitability for a given profession is the third “factor”. At the same time, the qualities of a person and the requirements of the profession are considered to be relatively stable, which serves as the basis for an “objective” choice...
^ Artificial “fit” of a person and a profession – possible options: deception, manipulation, campaigning for unattractive professions (were common in the 60-80s in the USSR); skillfully selling oneself on the “labor market” (this is, rather, a deception of enterprises and the state as a whole, for example, now there are a lot of manuals on “effectively building a career” based on “skillfully selling oneself to the employer”); development of methods with elements of manipulation (for example, after a survey, many “suddenly” show interest in the “required” professions...).
^ Diagnostic-corrective, diagnostic-developmental professional consultation. In contrast to the diagnostic and recommendation model of career guidance assistance, which is based on the invariability of the qualities and requirements of professions, here everything is based on taking into account changes in the chosen professions, in their requirements for a person, as well as on taking into account the changing client (optant). An important feature of this type of assistance is the opportunity to improve something in your situation and constantly adjust your choices depending on changing requirements of the profession (according to E.M. Borisova and K.M. Gurevich).
^ Accounting for a changing society. In addition to changing professions and a changing person, the dynamics of social processes are taken into account. The profession itself is increasingly beginning to be seen as a means for building one’s success in life, as well as a means for finding one’s place in a given society with the help of a profession. The basic concepts characteristic of this level of development of career guidance are: professional and life success, career, lifestyle...
^ Taking into account the change (development) of the “value-moral, semantic core” of a self-determining person. At this level of career guidance assistance, the change in a self-determining person’s ideas about the very meaning of his professional choice is taken into account. It is also not just “success” that is taken into account, but also the “moral price” for such success. The main concepts here are: conscience, self-esteem, the meaning of life and chosen professional activity.
1) ^ Uncertainty of the vector of development (change) of society, when it becomes difficult to determine one’s place in such an “undefined” (or, better said, “non-self-determined”) society. In such a situation, it is important to develop in the client a readiness for various options for self-determination, as well as a readiness to navigate not only in real society, but also at least some attempts to predict (in his own way) changes in society...
Lack of clarity regarding the ideals of personal and professional self-determination (what one strives for, who to follow as an example...). This is, first of all, the problem of the “elite” (elite orientations), so unloved and painful for many psychologists. Meanwhile, E. Erikson wrote that it is very important for a teenager to define “aristocracy” for himself (sample “ the best people") and "ideology" to justify your life choices...
^ Test questions for section 1:
What is the psychological criterion for the emergence and development of the problem of professional self-determination?
Give an example of the dependence of the level of development of career guidance on the general cultural and historical situation in society.
What is the fundamental difference between traditional and modern views on the essence of career guidance assistance?
What role do the values and ideals of a self-determining person play in professional choice?
Literature for section 1:
Borisova E.M., Gurevich K.M. Psychological diagnostics in school career guidance // Questions of psychology, 1988, No. 1, p. 77-82.
Golovakha E.I. Life prospects and professional self-determination of young people. – Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1988. – 144 p.
Zinchenko V.P. Affect and intelligence in education. – M.: Trivola, 1995. – 64 p.
Klimov E.A. How to choose a profession. – M.: Education, 1990. – 159 p.
^ THE ESSENCE OF PROFESSIONAL
Correlation of concepts: career guidance and
self-determination, professional choice and career.
IN career guidance The following areas are traditionally distinguished: vocational information, vocational agitation, vocational education, vocational diagnostics (vocational selection, vocational selection) and vocational consultation... Career guidance is a very comprehensive concept, for example, we can say that modern Western society is essentially vocational guidance, because From birth, he orients the child towards “success in life”, towards a “successful career”. Career guidance involves a wide range of measures, going beyond just pedagogy and psychology, to assist in choosing a profession, which includes professional consultation as individually oriented assistance in professional self-determination.
Both career guidance and career counseling are “guidance” school student (optant), whereas is more correlated with the “self-orientation” of a student acting as a subject of self-determination (according to E.A. Klimov).
Professional and personal self-determination have a lot in common, and in their highest manifestations they almost merge. If you try to separate them, you can distinguish two fundamental differences:
^ Professional self-determination - more specific, easier to formalize (get a diploma, etc.); personal self-determination– this is a more complex concept (a diploma “for personality”, at least for mentally healthy people, is not yet issued...).
^ Professional self-determination depends more on external (favorable) conditions, and personal self-determination- from the person himself, moreover, often it is bad conditions that allow someone to truly express themselves (heroes appear at turning points...). True, even in prosperous eras, full of “temptations” and so-called “happiness” with frozen smiles (when everyone is “supposed” to be happy), there are still people. who are looking for meaning for themselves in solving some special problems that are incomprehensible to the average person, for whom the worst thing is the joy of the masses “chomping with happiness.” For such people, a prosperous era turns into the most terrible torture and they themselves create additional difficulties for themselves, i.e. conditions for truly personal self-development.
^ The concept of "career" widespread in the West (for example, in the USA, career guidance is often generally called “career psychology”). Russia has its own tradition of using the word “career” - this is success in any activity, but with some negative connotations (such as “careerism”). In the American tradition, a career (according to J. Super) is “a certain sequence and combination of roles that a person performs during his life” (child, student, vacationer, employee, citizen, spouse, owner of the house, parent...).” This understanding is close to life self-determination in the Russian tradition.
True, in the Western tradition, the concept of “career” is increasingly associated with irony and condemnation. For example, V. Berg in his book “Career-Super Game” writes: “A successful career is not a happy accident. Try not to fall into the teeth of the “wolves” of economics and politics who have managed to make a brilliant career, but learn to howl and hunt with them. Why don't you start bullying the colleagues around you yourself? Become a killer before you become a victim. But you should always remember that this will slightly spoil your conscience. However, your enemies, your competitors, your envious colleagues... after all, they do exactly the same. Bullying, intrigue, envy no longer cause feelings of shame”...
^ Professional choice, in contrast to professional self-determination (according to E.I. Golovakha), “this is a decision that affects only the immediate life prospects of the student”, which can be carried out “both taking into account and without taking into account the long-term consequences of the decision” and “in the latter case the choice of profession as a fairly specific life plan will not be mediated by distant life goals.” J. Super believes that during his life (career) a person is forced to make many choices (the career itself is considered as “alternating choices”).
^ Conceptual levels of assistance to a person in
The identification of these levels is conditional. Often these levels actually intersect in real psychological practice. But highlighting them still allows the psychologist-vocational consultant to better understand (reflect) his work.
^ 1. Adaptation-technological level is focused on helping a person optimally “fit” into a certain system as an organic “member”, a “cog” (in a socio-professional group, team, in a production system). The main goal is maximum efficiency of this system when including a self-determining person in it. The mental qualities of the client are taken into account (through testing, conversation), but the more essential interests of the person himself are usually ignored or are closely linked to the interests of this production system(this is still the best case scenario).
^ 2. Social adaptation level is aimed at helping a person adapt to a given society, which involves assistance in building a certain way of life. The choice of a profession itself is often seen as a means to build a certain lifestyle (what is important is not the profession, not the job, but what it “will give” to a given person). The client's interests are taken into account to a much greater extent (life success, material wealth, prestige). But ethical doubts remain (for example, “success” can be achieved in “any” ways, even “through the corpses” of other people...).
^ 3.Value-semantic, moral level. Here the professional consultant tries to touch upon problems of meaning, conscience... At this level of help, problems immediately arise: not all clients would like to solve their problems at this level; not all career consultants are ready and would like to work at this level...
If a professional consultant works in a “reputable” commercial structure, then most likely the administration, customers, and many employees themselves are not very interested in the value-semantic level (resourceful, educated people often believe that they have long ago figured out the meanings and values for themselves: for For many of them, the “personal problem” does not seem to exist...), then in such conditions one also has to outwardly portray work at more primitive levels, only allowing oneself to touch upon the most interesting problems of self-determination with some clients. Moreover, so that the management would not find out, and the clients would not really guess...
^ Professional self-determination as a search for meaning in
The concept of “self-determination” is fully correlated with such currently fashionable concepts as self-actualization, self-realization, self-realization, self-transcendence... At the same time, many thinkers associate self-realization, self-actualization, etc. from work activity. with work. For example, A. Maslow believes that self-actualization manifests itself “through passion for meaningful work”; K. Jaspers connects self-realization with the “deed” that a person does. I.S. Kon says that self-realization is manifested through labor, work and communication... P.G. Shchedrovitsky notes that “the meaning of self-determination is in a person’s ability to build himself, his individual history, in the ability to constantly rethink his own essence.”
E.A. Klimov distinguishes two levels of professional self-determination: 1) gnostic (restructuring of consciousness and self-awareness); 2) practical level (real changes in a person’s social status).
Self-determination presupposes not only “self-realization”, but also the expansion of one’s original capabilities - “self-transcendence” (according to V. Frankl): “...fullness human life is determined through its transcendence, i.e. the ability to “go beyond oneself,” and most importantly, in a person’s ability to find new meanings in a specific matter and in his entire life”... Thus, it is the meaning that determines the essence of self-determination, self-realization and self-transcendence...
N.A. Berdyaev in his work “Self-Knowledge” notes that “on the threshold of adolescence and youth, I was once shocked by the thought: “Even though I don’t know the meaning of life, but the search for meaning already gives meaning to life, and I will devote my life to this search for meaning”...
All this allows us to determine the essence of professional self-determination as the search and finding of personal meaning in the chosen, mastered and already performed work activity, as well as finding meaning in the process of self-determination itself.
In this case, the paradox of self-determination is immediately revealed (as well as the paradox of happiness): the found meaning immediately devalues life (a kind of “emptiness” is formed). Therefore, it is the process of searching for meaning that is important, where individual (already found) meanings are only intermediate stages of the process (the process itself becomes the main meaning - this is life, life as a process, and not as some kind of “achievement”).
True, according to V. Frankl, it turns out that meaning cannot be built anew, it can only be “found”... But there is an element of predetermination in this...
With a more creative approach to one’s life, the meaning itself is created anew by a person. It is in this case that a person turns into a genuine subject of self-determination, and not simply acts as a conductor of some “higher” meanings...
One of the most difficult (and at the same time creative) problems is the search for meaning for a specific self-determined client. But there cannot be a single meaning (the same for everyone). The only exceptions are eras of wars and moral trials, when the people or certain layers of society are united by a single idea... We can conditionally highlight some options for the meaning of self-determination, intended for general orientation both for the self-determined client and for the professional psychologist himself.
1. In relation to professional self-determination, a generalized meaning can be identified: the search for a profession and work that would provide the opportunity to receive earnings (social assessment of work) fairly, i.e. in accordance with the effort expended (or in accordance with the person’s contribution to society).
But K. Marx also posed the problem "alienation of labor from capital." His line of reasoning is roughly as follows. Two aspects of labor are distinguished: 1) “living labor” - as an activity, as an opportunity and as a source of wealth and 2) “abstract labor”, expressed in value, in capital. Due to the unfair distribution of wealth, it often turns out that a worker has little money (only to maintain his existence), and a slacker can be rich... In a fair society, living labor (the activity itself, work) should be combined with the abstract (with monetary reward) . Plato also believed that in a just society, a person’s contribution to society should correspond to the reward. A slacker can become a rich man precisely because labor exists in two aspects and it (especially in the abstract part associated with capital) can be unfairly “alienated” from a real worker.
Thus, what becomes more important is not the work itself, but the possibility of redistributing benefits and the results of this work. But devalued labor gives rise to purely psychological problems related to the attitude towards work and planning one’s development as a real worker or as an “enterprising” slacker exploiter. And although K. Marx himself did not explore the purely psychological consequences of such injustice (psychology itself as a science had not yet appeared), his reasoning can be very interesting when considering problems of professional self-determination.
Money is not only an economic category - it is a kind of accumulator of human hopes, dreams and meanings... Already in the development of Marx’s ideas, we can say that the owner of capital, as it were, also possesses parts of the souls of other people. But money (large capital) allows the person who possesses it to free up free time for harmonious personal development.
« ^ Harmoniously developed individual “(according to K. Marx) is a person who is constantly changing his professional functions, these are “the essence of alternating ways of life,” i.e. Harmony is understood as versatility in different types of work. “With developed industry, a worker will change his profession every five years,” wrote K. Marx... It is noteworthy that in many Western companies (in particular, in modern Germany) it is difficult to make a career without mastering related professions...
The worst “curse” for K. Marx is « professional idiot" (or - “professional idiocy”), i.e. a person “who knows well only his profession, is limited by it and does not participate in the life of society”... Another “curse” of K. Marx - "vocation", which also greatly limits a person, because assigns it to a specific labor function. “Recognizing a calling, we are forced to admit the fatality of human life, but man is the creator of his own destiny,” wrote K. Marx. One can imagine K. Marx’s reaction if he had entered a Soviet school several years ago, where slogans like: “You choose a profession. Remember - this is for life!”...
K. Marx noted that “ The main result of labor is not the goods produced, but the person himself in his social relations." Under capitalism, many people appear who have the opportunity to use free time for their development - and this is the progressive meaning of capitalism (compared to previous formations). But all this happens at the expense of the exploitation of other people (who spend their time on exhausting work to ensure their existence). It was assumed that under socialism the majority of people would have time for harmonious development - this was Marx’s main “sedition”...
2. But, as already noted, K. Marx did not reveal precisely the psychological (personal) meaning of labor. E. Fromm tried to somewhat “psychologize” K. Marx. His term is "alienated character" when a person separates from his business, from his activity, when the activity ceases to be personally significant for him, i.e. a person seems to lose the meaning of his work... A person simply sells himself on the “market of personalities” (like Marx, a person sells his labor power). An alienated character is a “market personality” that has lost its true meaning (the meaning for such a person is, as it were, outside of work, for example, in making money). But again it is unclear what this meaning is? For example, the question remains unanswered: why does a person need a lot of money? As an antithesis to the “alienated character”, E. Fromm identifies “non-alienated character”, when a person performs an activity that is significant for himself, as if personally “merging” with it, but the essence of such a person is revealed only through a set of “beautiful” (albeit correct) words , such as through “self-orientation,” an active, loving and reasonable orientation,” when “he loves what he works for and works for what he loves,” etc.
3. V. Frankl considers different variants of meanings (“three triads of meanings”) and identifies the most important of them – the meaning of suffering, but “only the kind of suffering that changes a person for the better”... True, even before him, F. Nietzsche wrote that “a person’s place in society is determined by the suffering that he is ready to endure for it”... If we take suffering for the sake of self-improvement as a basis, then the question remains: in what direction to improve, what ideals does he strive for? And although W. Frankl himself, and F. Nietzsche, give approximate guidelines for self-development, the construction of “spaces” of choice is still left to the client himself. As a result, the client, and the psychologist-consultant himself, remain at a loss.
4. J. Rawls in his famous work “The Theory of Justice” highlights The “primary good” is self-esteem. The question can be raised again: why does a person need money and capital? – The usual answer: to buy things, experience culture, travel, etc. But then an even more interesting question follows: why is all this? – Many people are usually at a loss with the answer, because... the answer seems self-evident. Let's try to reason in this direction. A typical example: a person bought an expensive thing (traveled abroad, “got involved in culture, ran around the entire Louvre in two hours”...), but often the main point for him is to tell his loved ones and acquaintances about it. It is known, for example, that a person often gets more pleasure not from a prestigious trip abroad, but from the anticipation of this trip, or from stories about this trip among “friends”, or from memories of it... That is, the point is not in the trip, and outside of it...
But then the question arises: why does this happen? And why then is this trip (this purchase, etc.) needed? – One of the most convincing answers: to increase a sense of self-worth... Thus, it is not even money (and the benefits purchased with it) that become the main meaning: money is one of the means to increase self-esteem... But all this means that often When choosing a profession (the most prestigious and lucrative), a person either consciously or intuitively focuses on what the profession can give him to increase his sense of self-worth. If we put aside the grievances and indignations about the above reasoning, then highlighting self-esteem as the “original” category will allow us to better understand many clients, their “primary”, more essential ideas about values and benefits, and therefore about the meaning of their professional life...
5. If we try to somewhat develop the idea of the “primary good” and self-esteem, then we can highlight another version of the meaning - desire for elitism. It is known that many people (teenagers and their ambitious parents) often dream of going “from rags to riches” (including through a “successfully” chosen profession, and through “successful” employment...). This is especially important in eras of socio-economic transformations and upheavals, when what comes to the fore is not so much creative, highly qualified specialists who work effectively in more stable conditions, but so-called “adventurers” who have not so much the talent to work well, but the talent to get a good job (or more precisely, adapt to the changing labor market conditions). The idea of adventurism is now very popular among self-determined youth.
Interestingly, V.A. Polyakov, in his famous book “Career Technology,” openly identifies two main goals (we would say meaning) when building a “successful” career: the first is to “achieve a high position in society,” and the second is to achieve a “high income"...
Of course, elitist orientations in professional self-determination presuppose not only “prestige” and “high earnings,” but also, indeed, a creative construction of one’s life, an orientation towards the highest human ideals and values. The only problem is how to figure out where the real values are and where the imaginary ones are, where the elite is and where the pseudo-elite is...
^ Scheme for building a personal professional perspective
professional self-determination.
This scheme is an attempt to specify the concept of “professional self-determination”, to move from general reasoning to an option that could be used in practical work and in the development of new methods of career guidance. This LPP scheme is based on the scheme proposed by E.A. Klimov, only significantly supplemented with value-semantic components (see Table 1).
On the left side of the table are the components of the scheme for constructing a PPP, and on the right are the relevant questions for working with clients. If the work is carried out with a class, then everyone tears out a regular notebook piece of paper, signs it, puts down the number of the next question and immediately writes down the answer (usually about 25-30 minutes are spent on the entire questionnaire). After this, the results are processed in a certain way (see below).
If this is an individual professional consultation, then the psychologist-consultant can insert questions about the scheme for constructing the LPP into the conversation with the client. Please note that it is better to focus on the components themselves, which, firstly, are more complete in their content and, secondly, take into account the positive characteristics of the client’s situation to a greater extent (for example, in question 8, on the right it asks about the shortcomings, and component 8, on the left – the emphasis is on the capabilities and advantages of the client...). Naturally, both in a questionnaire for working with a class and in an individual conversation-professional consultation, the wording of questions can be modified while maintaining their main meaning.
Table 1.
Scheme for constructing a personal professional perspective (PPP).
| ^ Components of LPP | Questionnaire on the scheme for constructing the LPP (answers are written on pieces of paper: question numbers are entered and the answer is given immediately) |
| 1. Awareness of the value of honest work (the value-moral basis of self-determination) | 1. Is it worth working honestly in our time? Why? |
| 2. Awareness of the need for vocational education after school | 2. Is it worth studying after school, since you can get a good job anyway? |
| 3. General orientation in the socio-economic situation in the country and forecasting its changes | 3. When will life get better in Russia? |
| 4. Knowledge of the world of professional work (macro-informational basis for self-determination) |
|
| 5. Identification of a long-term professional goal (dream) and its coordination with other important life goals |
|
| 6. Identification of immediate and proximate professional goals (as stages and paths to a distant goal) | 6. Highlight the main 5-7 stages on the way to your dream... |
| 7. Knowledge of specific chosen goals: professions, educational institutions, places of work... (micro-information basis for choice) | 7. As a task: write down the three most unpleasant moments associated with working in your chosen profession and three associated with studying at a university or college... |
| 8. An idea of your capabilities and shortcomings that may influence the achievement of your goals | 8. What in yourself can hinder you on the path to your goals? (You can’t write about “laziness” - you need to be more specific). |
| 9. How are you going to work on your shortcomings and prepare for the profession (for admission)? |
| 10. The idea of external obstacles on the way to goals | 10. Who and what can prevent you from achieving your goals? |
| 11. Knowledge of ways to overcome external obstacles | 11. How are you going to overcome these obstacles? |
| 12. Availability of a system of backup options (in case the main option fails) | 12. Do you have backup options? |
| 13. Idea about the meaning of your future professional work | 13. What do you generally see as the meaning of your professional life (why do you want to acquire a profession and work |
| 14. Beginning of practical implementation of LPP | 14. What are you already doing to implement your plans (you cannot write about the fact that you are a good student: what are you doing in addition to your good studies...)? |
Various possible options for processing results(according to the LPP questionnaire):
1) First option: The pieces of paper are collected and the psychologist himself evaluates the quality of the answers. Below are indicative evaluation criteria(for each question):
1 point - refusal to answer this question;
2 points - a clearly erroneous answer or an honest admission of no answer;
3 points - minimally specific answer (for example, I’m going to go to college, but it’s unclear which one...);
4 points - specific answer with an attempt to justify it;
5 points - a specific and well-founded answer that does not contradict other answers.
2) Second option: First students themselves evaluate their answers (first, 1-2 anonymous papers are analyzed together and students master the evaluation system using other people’s examples), then the psychologist collects the pieces of paper, evaluates them and compares them with the students’ self-assessments...
If you look carefully at this diagram of LPP, then almost all of psychology is represented in it in one way or another. This means that real career guidance is a very complex and time-consuming work. If career guidance assistance is provided within 30-40 minutes, then such “help” is usually called “ profanation»…
^ Traditionally identified factors for choosing a profession.
E.A. Klimov highlights the basics of professional choice and names three main components - “three pillars” of career guidance: 1) taking into account the desire to work in a given profession (“I want”); 2) taking into account abilities, opportunities to master a given profession and the ability to work productively in the future (“I can”); 3) taking into account the needs of the national economy in the chosen profession (“must”). True, lately it has been more appropriate to talk not about the needs of the national economy. but about the “needs of the market”, which is perceived by the majority of modern teenagers with full understanding (although they used to laugh at the “needs of the national economy”).
Also highlighted more specific factors for choosing a profession(according to E.A. Klimov): 1) taking into account one’s interests and inclinations; 2) taking into account abilities; 3) taking into account the prestige of the chosen profession; 4) taking into account awareness of it; 5) taking into account the position of parents; 6) taking into account the position of classmates, friends and peers; 7) taking into account the needs of production (“market”), and 8) the presence of a specific program of action for choosing and achieving professional goals - from a personal professional perspective (PPP). The LPP is considered successful when it is built taking into account all the listed factors. When working with schoolchildren, the factors for choosing a profession are indicated in the form of an “octagon”, and when assessing (or self-assessing) the situation of professional choice, lines indicate the connections of the LPP with certain factors (for example, if the LPP is constructed without taking into account this factor, then the line is not drawn) . In this form, the “octagon of main choice factors” clearly reflects the teenager being consulted and allows him to clarify his career guidance problems himself.
A.I. Zelichenko and A.G. Shmelev identified the system external and internal motivational factors of work, allowing not only to analyze specific work activities and highlight the main motives for choosing certain professions:
1. External factors:
1.1. Pressure: recommendation, advice, instructions from other people, as well as examples of movie heroes, literary characters, etc.); objective requirements (military service, family financial situation...); individual objective circumstances (state of health, abilities...);
1.2. Attraction-repulsion: examples from a person’s immediate environment, from other people; everyday standards of “social prosperity” (fashion, prestige, prejudices);
1.3. Inertia: stereotypes of existing social roles (family, membership in informal groups...); habitual activities (arising under the influence of school subjects, hobbies...).
2. Internal motivational factors:
2.1. Own motivational factors of the profession: subject of work; the labor process (attractive - unattractive, aesthetic aspects, variety - monotony of activity, determinism - randomness of success, labor intensity of work, individual - collective work, opportunities for human development in this work...); labor results;
2.2. Working conditions: physical (climatic, dynamic work characteristics); territorial-geographical (proximity of location, need for travel...); organizational conditions (independence-subordination, objectivity-subjectivity in the assessment of work...); social conditions (difficulty-ease of obtaining professional education, opportunities for subsequent employment; security of the employee’s position; free-restricted regime; social microclimate...);
2.3. Opportunities for realizing non-professional goals: opportunities for social work; to achieve the desired social position; to create material well-being; for recreation and entertainment; to preserve and improve health; for mental self-preservation and development; for communication.
Identification (and awareness) of such factors allows the career counselor and the client to better understand what exactly determines their specific professional and life choices.
^ Priorities of career guidance work in modern
The identified priorities make sense only against the backdrop of traditional career guidance assistance. In this case, the priority is to find a new, risky option for help in changing conditions. But such a search may also be unsuccessful, so traditional (and in some ways even outdated) forms of work are a kind of “safety net” in case of failure. This is a guarantee that at least some minimal assistance will be provided to the client (student)... Let us recall that the following areas of career guidance assistance are traditionally distinguished: career information, career advertising, vocational propaganda, vocational education, professional diagnostics (vocational selection, professional selection), professional consultation, assistance in employment and etc.
Against this background, the priority areas of creative search for a career consultant stand out:
^ Helping a self-determined teenager adapt to the real socio-economic conditions of the “market”. Even when it is not clear what kind of “market” is built in the Russian Federation, a school graduate must be offered the most optimal option for finding his place in society (no matter how “free” and “cheerful” this society may be...). However, even with this priority, the idea of “advanced professional consultation” seems promising, i.e. orientation not only to what is now. But at least some forecasting of changes in society.
^ Forming the ability to independently navigate in a constantly changing situation. What becomes more important is not assistance in a specific choice, but the formation of the very ability to make various professional and life choices. It is important to orient the client towards a possible positive change in the situation (the formation of “social optimism”). Ideally, this is the formation of a desire to make a positive contribution to improving the situation (the formation of “effective social optimism”). All this is also connected with optimism towards oneself (the idea of one’s “mission”, one’s purpose in this world). But “effective social optimism” and faith in one’s destiny must necessarily be combined with the ability to adapt to the real world.
^ Formation of the moral-volitional rear” of a self-determining person. The idea of such a “rear” is suggested by professional consulting practice itself: sometimes a self-determined person reasons something like this: “First I have to achieve something in this world (acquire a prestigious and lucrative profession, get a job, buy this and that...), and then “You can do what you love...” True, not everyone then actually does what they love, because... “business” (the modern “whirlwind”) is very addictive and leaves an imprint on a person’s entire life... Often then such people try to “realize” themselves in their children...
For many people, joining the socio-professional “get-together” is an excellent option for providing the “rear” for a successful career. A “specialist in a party” has a much better chance of a successful career than a “specialist who goes out (works) on his own.” There is something similar in the criminal environment, because a “thief in law” is, first of all, a thief in his “get-together”... At the same time, it is first important to be accepted into such a “get-together” (or become a “student in the get-together”, or become "specialist in the party"). But then, if an employee (or a student) has a true need to create, to show his dignity, then another problem may arise - the problem of a painless exit “from the party,” because it is known that the socio-professional environment greatly limits a professional’s development. Often what comes to the fore in a “get-together” is not professionalism, but such qualities as “brightness”, spectacular scandalousness and quarrelsomeness, or it is not clear what the “charismatic” is based on (members of “get-togethers” love it when someone from their environment has “ special qualities”...).
And then the most important professional choice will be the search for ways to gain true independence through overcoming “public opinion,” through leaving the “party” and gaining a qualitatively different “psychological rear.” Maybe it is from this moment that a person truly becomes a subject of professional self-determination?...
^ Forming readiness for internal compromises on the path to success ( this is often unavoidable). We must immediately distinguish between “internal compromise” and “deal with conscience”: a deal with conscience is a concession on a significant value (something “sacred”), and internal compromise is the art of giving in on small, insignificant things. This is somewhat reminiscent of a “psycho-social moratorium” (according to E. Erikson), when a young man is ready to do something, but the general situation does not allow him to realize himself in some action. Need to say. That every self-determining person will have many such psycho-social (or psycho-professional) “moratories” throughout his working life.
^ Formation of the value-semantic core of a self-determining personality. The main thing here is to build a system (hierarchy) of values and meanings around something that is most important for a given person. It is the construction of such a hierarchy of meanings that will become the most important condition for distinguishing an essential value (“sacred”) from a less significant value. those. condition for making a worthy internal compromise.
The very realization of a crisis as a “chance” can be viewed in three ways: 1) as the realization of something inevitable, almost predetermined (“normative chance”); 2) as a realization of unplanned life complexity (the problem of readiness for “life’s surprises”); 3) as an independent complication for yourself life situation, i.e. not so much “waiting for a chance” or “reacting” to it, but rather “creating a chance” (a more creative position - for restless, searching people).
The problem for a career counselor (or for a teacher-psychologist at school) is how to prevent personality degradation at the time of life’s trials and ensure a person’s transition to a higher level of self-determination and personal development (i.e., how to teach a person to “take advantage of his chance”). This problem is connected with another problem: what psychological and pedagogical means will be used to ensure all this?
^ General logic for implementing the identified priorities:
further theoretical study of problematic areas of development of career guidance assistance;
gradual development of new (priority) techniques;
gradual inclusion of new techniques in the context of traditional forms and methods of professional self-determination;
constant adjustment of these methods depending on changing situations.
Test questions for section 2.
Is professional self-determination a process or a result? Why?
What is the point of career guidance assistance?
What is LPP?
What is the point of identifying and understanding the factors of professional choice for career counseling? Give examples of the main selection factors. Why are these factors the main ones? Can different people have different underlying selection factors?
Should a career counselor help a person self-determinate in conditions of outright dictatorship or even fascism?
Literature for section 2:
Berg V. Career is a super game. – M.: JSC Interexpert, 1998. – 272 p.
Zelichenko A.I., Shmelev A.G. On the issue of classification of motivational factors of work activity and professional choice // Bulletin of Moscow State University, ser. 14-psychology, 1987, No. 4, P.33-43.
Klimov E.A. Psychology of professional self-determination. – Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1996. – 512 p.
Polyakov V.A. Career technology. – M.: Delo LTD, 1995. – 128 p.
Pryazhnikov N.S. Professional and personal self-determination. – M.: Publishing house: Institute of Practical Psychology, Voronezh: NPO “MODEK”, 1996. – 246 p.
Pryazhnikov N.S. Psychological meaning labor. – M.: Publishing house: Institute of Practical Psychology, Voronezh: NPO “MODEK”, 1997. – 352 p.
Frankl V. Man in Search of Meaning. – M.: Progress, 1990. – 368 p.
Fromm E. Man for himself. – Mn.: Collegium, 1992. – 253 p.
^ PSYCHOLOGICAL “SPACES”
SELF-DETERMINATION.
The main guidelines of a self-determining person.
The main problem: what does a person choose in general, is it always professions, educational institutions and places of work? Traditional career guidance focuses a person primarily on professions. In this case, of course, a person’s abilities, his inclinations, and the needs of society are taken into account (nowadays they say “market needs”)... But is everything so simple?...
If we turn to one of the most interesting (according to E.A. Klimov) definition of profession, proposed back in the 20s by S.M. Bogoslovsky, it turns out that “a profession is an activity, and the activity is one through which a given person participates in the life of society and which serves as its main source of material livelihood...", but at the same time it must "... be recognized as a profession by the personal identity of the person" But is what the client chooses always “recognized by him as a profession”?
In reality, this can be a choice of profession or specialization, qualification (as a level of professional skill), position or simply a specific job position... For example, a person seems to choose a profession, but in fact he chooses an activity that will quickly allow him to occupy a certain leadership position (and it doesn’t matter what kind of profession it is: a person wants to have a “prominent position”).
The elections themselves may be "external" and "internal". For example, a person outwardly declares to everyone that he wants to be a psychologist, but deep down he is an ordinary salesman (or businessman), or vice versa... As a result, we formally have a specialist - a psychologist who does nothing but calculate the “revenue” from his psychological work... Actually external and internal elections often combined. For example, in any psychological-pedagogical organization there are sales psychologists, supervisor psychologists, journalist psychologists (who deal with squabbles), artist psychologists, photo model psychologists and even psychologists-psychologists... And each type of such specialists has its own benefits... That is a person, choosing one specific profession, continues to define himself within the framework of this profession, looking for more and more new meanings in it.
A career consultant must remember that it is often not so much a profession that is chosen as a way of life. For example, often a fashionable profession (now a lawyer and economist, and previously a physicist, scientist) allows you to engage in a currently prestigious business, earn good money and, most importantly, live like “the best people” (we again turn to the idea “elite orientations” in professional and life self-determination)…
^ Various typologies of professional and personal
Today, the most popular typology in Russia belongs to E.A. Klimov, who identified five spheres of labor based on the principle of human interaction with the primary subject of labor: man - nature, man - technology, man - sign systems, man - man and man - artistic image . It is interesting that foreign typologies often highlight similar areas of work. but at the same time something new is added. For example, such a “type of professional environment” as “entrepreneurial” (in D. Holland), and in earlier typologies - also the spheres of “politics” or “religion” (in E. Spranger), etc. Analysis of such typologies shows that they largely reflect the cultural and historical situation that has developed in a given society. This means that E.A. Klimov’s typology, for all its attractiveness, effectiveness and familiarity, is still a little outdated and does not reflect the situation in modern Russia.
In order for a career consultant to rely on a typology that is more adequate to the situation, one should either specifically develop a new typology, or look for some kind of universal typology that is adequate to different cultural and historical situations. The typology of M.R. Ginzburg seems promising here, where 15 types of self-determination are distinguished, built on two main coordinates: temporal and semantic. For example, a “stagnating type of self-determination” is distinguished, which is characterized by a prosperous present (meaning is found in the present) with an unfavorable future (“fear of the future”) or a “fantasy type of self-determination”, which is characterized by an unfavorable present, but a positively planned future (“flight to future"), etc.
In search of a universal typology, you can turn to historians, in particular to L.N. Gumilyov, who, relying on his passionary-attractive principle, identified 12 types of people. It is noteworthy that in his typology, in addition to traditional types (business people, scientists, ordinary people, etc.), “criminals” and “tempters” are also distinguished... Probably, historians are bolder than psychologists, because they try to reflect not only what is “desirable”, but also what, unfortunately, “takes place”...
E. Fromm’s typology is very interesting for the theory and practice of professional self-determination, especially in the part where he considers the types of “alienated character”. E. Fromm focuses on the description of the “market personality” and defines it as “an emptiness that must be filled as quickly as possible with the desired property,” i.e. those qualities that will make such a person the most competitive in the “personality market”. At the same time, the person himself ceases to be considered as a full-fledged personality and turns into a “product” that may or may not be bought... His main position: “I am as you please, as you need me to solve your problems...”. As a result, E. Fromm notes with bitterness, with such an orientation, “the preaching of labor loses its power and the preaching of selling labor on the personal market becomes paramount,” i.e. it doesn’t matter what kind of worker you are, it’s important how you know how to present yourself to the employer... Unfortunately, in modern Russia there are many people who see this as the meaning of professional self-determination and the essence of professional consulting assistance...
N.A. Smirnov proposed the following positions of professional self-determination: 1) the position of a “slave”, for whom the main question is “how to survive?”; 2) the position of the “consumer” (the main question is “What will I get from this?”); 3) the position of a “hired employee” (for him it is important “What to be?”); 4) the position of a “servant of the idea” (question – “Who should I be?”, “How to be useful to society, people, an idea?”); 5) the position of an “original person” (the main thing for him is “How to become yourself?”)…
When highlighting these and other typologies, it is important to remember that the right of a self-determining person is to choose for himself who to be and what to be. Even if a person voluntarily chooses for himself the position of “slave” or “consumer,” we do not have the right to deprive him of such joy. But we can tell (show) other options for his life and professional happiness. Unfortunately, people are very different and society itself exists thanks to their diversity... And no matter how much the best minds of humanity fought, they never managed to make all people equally wise, beautiful and worthy. Apparently, the very possibility of choosing a primitive path of development for oneself contains the main idea of self-determination - freedom of choice.
^ Various professional planning options
In career guidance traditionally there are professional plans and professional prospects. If a perspective is a holistic picture of one’s professional future, then a plan is a more specific program for achieving professional goals (according to E.I. Golovakha).
Today, life planning itself is often presented as the construction of a certain sequence of events. The events themselves are relatively short-term changes in a person’s life that are of significant importance to him - hence event approach. The well-known method of E.I. Golovakha and A.A. Kronik allows one to assess the significance of certain periods of a person’s life. A horizontal life line is drawn on a piece of paper (sometimes, for convenience, it is divided into segments of 5 years). On this line, the present moment (dot) and all the most significant events of the past and in the expected future are highlighted. Vertical - the level of happiness of a given person. After this, the client himself draws the line of his happiness in accordance with the main eras and events of life. If, for example, it turns out that the greatest happiness was in the past, then psychological help must be appropriate...
Similarly highlighted life strategies and life scenarios(according to E. Bern): strategies cover life as a whole, and scenarios are rather schematized rules of human behavior for implementing a strategy. E. Bern believes that scenarios are formed in early childhood and largely determine a person’s entire life. Based on the identification of different scenarios, three main types of people6 are identified: winners. Not winners and losers. At the same time, the main thing for a person when building his life is to “get out from under the power of the script” and start living a real life.
Some authors (for example, M.V. Rozin) consider life planning as “writing a poem.” This is more typical for creative people. Analyzing the fate of prominent figures, M.R. Rozin identifies four main points that determine such planning: 1) the image of the hero; 2) plot; 3) tragedy (and related experiences); 4) unexpected turns of fate... It turns out that a creative person is not very attracted to a simple, conflict-free life, he needs experiences and surprises... All this can also be taken into account when working with clients who are going to approach their life prospects creatively...
^ Types and levels of human self-determination.
Types of self-determination are distinguished by the criterion of the range of maneuver within the framework of this activity:
in specific labor actions and operations (in simple, assembly-line production, where the employee’s creativity is severely limited by this technology);
at a specific job position (the range of maneuver expands somewhat, since the same task can be performed different ways);
within the specialty; in the profession; life self-determination (the range will expand even more, since a person can realize himself in non-professional activities);
personal self-determination (not just mastering a social role or fulfilling it in one’s own way, but also the creation of new roles accepted in a given society... - “social rule-making” - according to A.V. Petrovsky and A.G. Asmolov);
self-determination in culture (the desire to leave a mark in history, to go beyond the time of one’s life - this is not only in “creative” professions...).
Self-determination in culture presupposes not only the acceptance of a person by his environment (as is the case with “personality”), but rather even acceptance by descendants (and the surrounding contemporaries may not accept... - this is already typical for a “genius” or for a “universum” - according to V.I. Slobodchikov). It is interesting that the “saint” in this case is a person whom not everyone can accept even his descendants, but only “higher powers” (or truly “dedicated” people) are able to appreciate...
^ Levels of self-determination are distinguished by the criterion of independence and creativity in the implementation of each type:
1) aggressive non-acceptance of this type or destruction of existing opportunities (destructive level - examples...);
2) avoidance of activities “quietly” (all sorts of “shirking” from work, from activities of this type);
3) work “according to instructions” (passive level);
4) the desire to do something in one’s own way (to improve individual elements of work - the beginning of creativity);
5) the desire to improve activities in general and realize their capabilities to the maximum (creative level).
For clarity, highlighted levels and types can be represented in the form of a diagram: along the coordinate axis indicate types, and along the abscissa axis - levels. We can also look at different “cases of self-determination” for comparison.
The first “case”: type – self-determination in a specific job position (a person lives in a city where there is severe unemployment, and is forced to agree to any, the most primitive job); but his level of creativity is fifth, i.e. maximum creativity (this is the kind of person who strives to put his soul into any business). Second “case”: type – self-determination in culture (for example, this is the offspring of famous and rich people, who has a lot of opportunities, a special circle of friends, his parents will probably remember him in their memoirs, his place in history is guaranteed...), but the level is aggressive non-acceptance of this type (drinks, uses drugs, despises his noble parents and all that, i.e. the person does not take advantage of opportunities and even destroys his situation...). One might ask a rhetorical question:Which of these two people do you like better, and which person would you like to be in?...
The identification of types and levels of self-determination poses the most important problem: how to realize opportunities (types) through your creative attitude to work (levels). In reality, a self-determining person must strive to expand his capabilities (mastering a new type of self-determination), as well as to realize his capabilities (transition to a new level of self-determination).
You can even put forward the following interesting assumption: for the majority of young people, it is the types that are more important (as the desire to expand their capabilities, up to comical examples. when a teenager dreams of a “rich inheritance” from some unknown grandmother in America...), and for the majority of already working, adults, everything is To a greater extent, it is precisely the levels of self-determination that become important (as the desire to maximize existing opportunities and master an already chosen business)... All this should also be taken into account in professional consulting practice.
“Self-determination” is understood as the search and constant clarification of the meaning of future life activity. Self-determination means making a certain choice. This can be the choice of a profession (“professional self-determination”), the choice of a moral position (“personal self-determination”), the choice of one’s place in society associated with the way and lifestyle, with status in various social groups (“social self-determination”), the choice of options spending leisure time (“leisure self-determination”) or even choosing the type of family relationships (“family self-determination”), etc. These different options for self-determination are considered and not only their interrelationships are noted, but also possible contradictions.
Generalized options and methods of orientation in various “spaces” of self-determination are covered. The psychological “spaces” themselves are considered as a metaphor that reflects and organizes a certain field of search for the meaning of self-determination. Each such “space” is built according to a certain principle, determined by the criteria that form its basis. There can be many psychological “spaces,” and a self-determining personality must be able to navigate in this multitude. The main groups have been identified into which the psychological “spaces” of self-determination can be conditionally divided, in particular, the typology of life and career planning options, the typology of types of work activity, and the typology of professions. It is emphasized that it is important for a self-determining person to understand what will become the meaning of his future professional activity, and how much all this will correspond/not correspond to his other life plans. Various methods are presented that allow a person to self-orient (in fact, self-determinate) in the complex “spaces” of career and life choices. Special attention focuses on self-determination of children in adolescence. The consonance of many modern approaches in career guidance with the ideas of P.Ya. Galperin about “orientations”.
Self-determination as a search for meaning
Self-determination means making a certain choice. This can be the choice of a profession (“professional self-determination”), the choice of a moral position (“personal self-determination”), the choice of one’s place in society associated with the way and lifestyle, with status in various social groups (“social self-determination”), the choice of options spending leisure time (“leisure self-determination”) or even choosing the type of family relationships (“family self-determination”), etc.
Often different types of self-determination complement each other, although there may be a certain conflict between them, when, for example, professional choices do not allow making certain leisure choices or when social or personal self-determination does not allow certain family choices to be made (other family members object, “not understand”, etc.).
Every time a person seems to ask himself, why do I need this, what is the meaning for me in this or that election? Various authors often associate self-determination with the search for meaning (Klimov, 1993; Cohn, 1984; Frankl, 1990; Shchedrovitsky, 1993). At the same time, self-determination is distinguished as a result (found meaning) and as a process (continuous search and clarification of meaning) (Pryazhnikov, 2016, pp. 144–149). It can be assumed that it is creative people who often give preference to self-determination as a process. For example, N.A. thought about this. Berdyaev, saying that “even if he does not know the meaning of life, the very search for this meaning already gives meaning to life” (Berdyaev, 1990, p. 74). The problem arises when there are too many of these meanings and you need to somehow navigate them.
Psychological “spaces” of self-determination
The psychological “spaces” themselves are considered by us as a metaphor that reflects and organizes a certain field of search for the meaning of self-determination. Moreover, each such “space” is built according to a certain principle, determined by the criteria that form the basis of this “space”. Accordingly, there can be many psychological “spaces”, and in this multitude a self-determining personality also needs to somehow navigate. For example, a person is thinking about choosing a profession, and then various typologies of professions can help him, as well as the criteria by which certain typologies are built. In Russia, one of the most famous typologies of professions was developed by E.A. Klimov and he called it “the formula of the profession” (Klimov, 1990, pp. 110–114). The typology is built in the form of “tiers” that reflect the main groups of characteristics of the profession:
objects of labor;
labor goals;
means of labor;
working conditions.
Accordingly, specific characteristics are identified in each group. For example, in objects of labor, a person (the subject of labor) interacts with nature, with technology, with sign systems, with other people, with artistic images. With the help of such more specific characteristics, many professions (or groups of professions) can be described. This allows a person, firstly, to orient himself in what interests him (which signs are most significant for him) and, secondly, to clarify for himself the choice of the profession itself based on these signs. In fact, each such feature can be considered as “orienting” (according to P.Ya. Galperin) and even as “meaning-forming” (according to A.N. Leontiev). Taken together, these signs set the complete psychological structure of future work (according to E.A. Klimov) and form the basis of the “right” choice, which a person will not subsequently regret.
But there are quite a lot of typologies of professions, and many of these typologies have other bases. For example, in the typology of “sciences” (as spheres of activity) of the famous public figure of the 17th century Tatishchev, “benefit for society” is taken as such a basis, and all professions are divided by the author into five groups, starting from “necessary sciences” and ending with “harmful sciences” (Tatishchev, 1979). In Strumilin’s typology, developed back in the 20s of the last century, the level of independence of the worker is taken as the basis and, accordingly, all professions are divided into groups, ranging from routine “executive” (with a minimal degree of independence) and ending with creative ones (with a high degree of independence). independence) (Strumilin, 1983).
The psychological “spaces” themselves can be conditionally divided into the following main groups:
their capabilities,
the level of your aspirations,
awareness of chosen professions and educational institutions,
your inclinations,
positions of your family and friends;
positions of their friends and classmates;
positions of teachers, school teachers;
having a personal professional plan - PBL.
realistic planning (taking into account one’s resources) and romantic planning (without due consideration of one’s resources);
“event approach”, when the whole life is considered as a sequence of bright and significant “events”, which provide a feeling of a “fulfilled” life and career;
“scenario approach”, when a person focuses on ready-made and often socially approved options for organizing his life, which is especially important for people who do not want (or are afraid) to take risks and want to focus, if not on outstanding achievements, but still on some guaranteed success.
creative life planning options that involve higher risks (including the risks of being misunderstood by others), but also a more interesting, original and successful life. Creative options also require a willingness to solve complex problems, a willingness to worry in the event of failure, and, at the same time, a willingness to remain creative in the event of great achievements (without arrogance and “dizzy with success”).
Options for assessing (comprehension) the situation of self-determination itself. For example, in the famous “octagon of career choice” proposed by E.A. Klimov (Klimov, 1990, pp. 121–128), the situation of professional self-determination itself is determined taking into account eight main factors:
At the same time, it is the LPP that is the integrating factor, and the quality of this plan is determined by the extent to which all other factors are taken into account. Therefore, you can make a choice based on both complete system factors, and incomplete (for example, only on propensity) or, conversely, more complete (by 2–4 factors). Here it is appropriate to recall P.Ya. Galperin, who spoke about the need to take into account the main orienting signs and, in accordance with this, even identified his famous “types of orientation” (Galperin, 2002). Note that E.A. Klimov at lectures and in “live” communication often spoke about the similarity of his views to the views of P.Ya. Galperin, and also that one of the central concepts of career guidance is the concept of “orientation”.
In some cases, the situation of self-determination (more specific career and life choices) is often determined taking into account a more comprehensive system of factors. For example, in the “Alternative Choice Scheme” methodology, specific options (professions, specialties and places of further education after school) are selected taking into account various factors that reflect both the characteristics of future work and the characteristics of training in specific universities and colleges (Pryazhnikov, 2008, p. 200 – 207). There are quite a few factors taken into account (several dozen), but the methodology contains an important idea - the client’s choice of the most significant factors for himself, which allows us to talk about taking into account his value and semantic orientations.
This technique also allows you to work in a dialogue mode between a consultant and a client. But, since not all clients initially know the selection rules laid down in the methodology, the consultant gradually (step by step) teaches the client these rules. And as a result, we can say that the client, with the help of a consultant, has mastered the “Alternative Choice Scheme” in relation to this specific choice or is ready to transfer these rules to other situations (in the language of P.Ya. Galperin, transfer to other tasks), which allows us to hope that the client will master the method of choosing a career option. In this case, we are already close to the formation of a subject of self-determination, capable (trained) of independently and consciously resolving issues of professional choice without the help of a consultant.
Typologies of professions, as well as derivatives from them - typologies of specialties, positions, etc. Unfortunately, many typologies of professions often do not reflect the full complexity of future professional work. For example, associated with a conscious or “forced” violation of the law or, even worse, associated with a violation of moral standards and conscience (humiliation of clients, customers, visitors or unfair distribution of income, when people dependent on a given employee cannot, or even “not dare" to defend their rights).
As a result, we receive incomplete guidance in the specifics of our future work and often make wrong choices or behave ineffectively in difficult professional situations. The problem is that it is difficult to speak openly about many “socially dubious” aspects of future work with schoolchildren, and sometimes with students, “for ethical reasons.” Probably, specialists in labor psychology (and vocational studies) have yet to find those tools that, on the one hand, will allow them to navigate all the important aspects of professions, and on the other hand, will not cause the indignation of those who in every possible way “protect” children and adolescents from unnecessary worries and “unnecessary” thoughts and doubts.
Typologies of types of work activity, not necessarily professional, but, for example, leisure, necessary for personal self-realization in those areas where, for various reasons, it is difficult to be an official professional (sports, poetry, acting, philosophy, volunteering, etc.).
Typologies of options for resolving career issues, starting from independent search and ending with contacting various specialists involved in career counseling (employment services, psychological centers, private recruitment agencies, career development training groups, coaches in organizations, etc.).
Typology of life and career planning options. It includes:
Thus, it is important to understand what a self-determining person needs, what will become for him the most important meaning of his future professional activity, and how much all this will correspond or not correspond to his other life plans.
Age-related psychological features of clarifying the meaning of self-determination
It is known that the readiness to search for meaning itself develops along with the development of personality. In the early stages of development, a child, with the help of an adult, often perceives the world of professional work more positively, and we believe that this is how it should be. But as he grows up (already in adolescence), the first doubts about the “exclusive positivity” of the adult world may appear. For example, when a child increasingly hears that honest and qualified workers do not always receive decent salaries and, on the contrary, lazy and greedy people can be millionaires and even billionaires... We call this “disappointment crises.”
Often a teenager needs serious conversations and reflection on his “discoveries” and “disappointments.” An adult (vocational psychologist) should not aggravate the situation and encourage him to hate the world(with this orientation, it’s not far from extremism). Adults need to, noting the real problems of society (economics and even politics), orient the reflective teenager to solving these problems in a civilized way. For example, get an education, make a career, eventually occupy a prominent place in society, in a professional environment, and then responsibly solve these problems, relying on experience, knowledge and your status recognized by others. Note that with this approach we can talk about the full formation of a civic position (as the antithesis of the formation of destructive orientations).
In further development, a person becomes more and more oriented towards the value-semantic aspects of his life and career. Therefore, many authors, speaking about the development of an adult, often cite a change in the value system as the most important criterion for the transition to the next stage of development (both professional and personal) (Livehud, 1994; Fromm, 1992). Thus, for a developing person, the search and clarification of the meaning of his life activities (including professional work) becomes increasingly important. Although many authors note that not everyone manages to truly change their value attitude towards the world and towards themselves, and many remain, as it were, “stuck” in development (Livehud, 1994; Sheehy, 1999).
Options for practical assistance for self-determined individuals
IN various methods professional counseling in one way or another modeled certain psychological “spaces” of self-determination or the foundations on which these spaces are built. The main options for such modeling are briefly presented below.
Use of tests and questionnaires. Often the result of testing is the correlation of the desires (or self-esteem) of the subject with a certain set of scales or parameters, which together represent a certain “space” of choice. For example, in the well-known method of E.A. Klimov’s “Differential Diagnostic Questionnaire (DDI)” (Klimov, 1990, pp. 143–152) modeled the space of the main “subjects of labor”: nature, technology, man, sign systems and artistic image. But, as noted above, E.A. Klimov also proposed a much more detailed typology, which included goals, means and working conditions. As we see, even such a well-known and recognized methodology does not reflect all the features of future professions. Unfortunately, this is also the case with many other tests used in career guidance, which is explained by the desire to increase the reliability of the survey, at least for a limited set of parameters.
Modeling the main characteristics of selected objects (professions, educational institutions, career plans, etc.) in special game procedures. For example, in the game “Guess the Profession” we do not care about its high validity and reliability (as in testing). Our task in conducting it is rather educational and informational - to acquaint students with a more complete set of signs of professional work. We took as a basis the “Profession Formula” developed by E.A. Klimov and added many new groups of characteristics of professions: features of communication, the nature of the worker’s mobility, the dominant types of responsibility of the worker, typical difficulties and troubles of work, its various features, the level of education necessary for its implementation. Other game methods simulate a typical working day (for example, the “Day in the Life” game method), demonstrate various moral aspects of work (for example, the “Business Riskman” game), etc. (Pryazhnikov, 2008, pp. 105–257). In more complex games, the whole life of a person is modeled, realizing different moral positions: “hard worker”, “lazy person”, “mediocrity” (for example, in the game “Three Fates”) (Pryazhnikov, Rumyantseva, 2013, pp. 194–197).
Together with the client, identifying the main parameters that define certain “spaces” of self-determination. This involves introducing the client (or group) to the different possible criteria and the corresponding choice “spaces”. After which the client can independently supplement the criteria proposed by the professional consultant with his own. This is well implemented in the form of “schemes for analysis and self-analysis of situations of self-determination.” It is productive to use here various task-situations (cases), using the example of the analysis of which one can show the very principle of using the “scheme”. As a result, using examples of jointly solved problems, the “scheme” is gradually mastered by the client (group), after which it can be used by the trainees independently.
Simple acquaintance of clients (groups) with various criteria for constructing “spaces” of self-determination and with such “spaces” themselves. Such acquaintance makes it possible to identify a certain field of choice for a self-determining personality, as well as to identify oneself in this field. For example, we may not even carry out Eysenck’s well-known technique for assessing the properties of the nervous system - EPQ (Practical Psychodiagnostics, 1999, pp. 121–141), but simply draw an “Eysenck circle” on the board (or show it on the screen), commenting on it. Then we need to invite schoolchildren to determine their place in the space of this circle. When we carried out a similar procedure, we were surprised to find that the points indicated to the students before administering the questionnaire largely coincided with the results of the questionnaire itself (coincidence at the level of 80–85%). This means that if the criteria for constructing certain spaces of self-determination are clearly explained to the client (group), then on the basis of self-assessment many are ready to define themselves in these spaces, even without the traditional use of tests and questionnaires in such cases.
Of course, we are not against tests and questionnaires, but it is better to supplement them with methods of work in which the degree of independence of students noticeably increases. Then we can hope for the development in them of methods for solving complex career (and other life) issues, and ideally, we can hope for the development of full-fledged subjects of self-determination (professional, personal, life, social, etc.).
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To quote the article:
Pryazhnikov N.S. Methods of orientation in the psychological “spaces” of self-determination. // National psychological journal. – 2017. – No. 3(27). – P.144-150
Prjazhnikov N.S. (2017). Guidance methods in psychological “spaces” of self-determination. National Psychological Journal. 3, 121-135.
-- [ Page 1 ] --
Pryazhnikov N.S.
PROFESSIONAL
SELF-DETERMINATION: THEORY AND
PRACTICE
(Training manual)
Moscow - 2007
Pryazhnikov N.S. Professional self-determination: theory and
practice. – M.: “Academy”, 2007. – p.
The manual provides an understanding of the “professional
self-determination." The active nature of the subject of professional self-determination is emphasized, and the psychological and pedagogical conditions for the formation of such activity are highlighted. Particular attention is paid to the active position of the psychologist and the organization of constructive interaction with a self-determining client (teenager).
The manual also presents the author's methods for activating professional self-determination and options for programs for the formation of a subject of professional self-determination in the conditions of working with a class, group, microgroup, as well as in individual professional consultations. The possibilities of using (incorporating) these programs into various models of pre-professional and specialized education for schoolchildren are considered.
This manual can be used in the training of psychologists and professional consultants both in theoretical classes and during special courses and practical classes. The manual is also intended for school psychologists (educational psychologists), class teachers, subject teachers, educators, consultants at various psychological centers and anyone interested in issues of professional self-determination of adolescents and young people.
INTRODUCTION Chapter 1. ESSENCE OF PROFESSIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION 1.1. General trends in the development of career guidance 1.2. Professional self-determination as a search for meaning 1.3. “Subject of professional self-determination” and the main stages of its development 1.4. Main factors of professional self-determination 1.5. The image of success in life as the most important regulator of professional choices 1.6. Socio-psychological and professional “spaces” of personal self-determination 1.7. Main mistakes and prejudices when planning a career Test questions for Chapter 1 Chapter 2. ORGANIZATIONAL AND PRACTICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION 2.1. Goals and objectives of professional self-determination 2.2. Organizational principles of career guidance 2.3. Career guidance as a system 2.4. Main priorities of career guidance work in modern conditions 2.5. Problems and difficulties in implementing the goals and objectives of career guidance work Test questions for Chapter 2 Chapter 3. BASICS OF DESIGNING CAREER GUIDANCE METHODS AND PRACTICAL PROGRAMS 3.1. General idea of practical career guidance methodology 3.2. Method as a means of achieving goals and solving specific problems. Typology of methods for possible purposes 3.3. Typology of traditional scientific and practical methods of career guidance 3.4. Main characteristics of activating professional consulting methodology 3.5. General scheme for designing activating career guidance tools 3.6. General recommendations for drawing up career guidance programs 3.7. Recommendations for planning and conducting specific career guidance classes 3.8. Recommendations for planning and conducting specific professional consultations 3.9. Basics of organizing the interaction of a psychologist-vocational consultant with related specialists 3.10. The problem of assessing the effectiveness of professional counseling assistance.
Test questions for Chapter 3 Chapter 4. OPTIONS FOR CAREER GUIDANCE PROGRAMS FOR WORKING WITH SCHOOLCHILDREN 4.1. Options for career guidance programs at the level of full-fledged courses (included in the schedule or in the form of elective classes) 4.2. Program options for occasional career guidance classes 4.3. Options for programs within the framework of pre-vocational training for schoolchildren 4.4. Options for career guidance programs within the framework of specialized training 4.5. Options for planning individual professional consultations in different conditions Test questions for Chapter 4 Chapter 5. METHODS OF ACTIVATING PROFESSIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION 5.1. Career guidance games with the class General characteristics of these methods (activating and diagnostic capabilities) Game “Association” Game “Guess the Profession” Game “Aliens” Game “Advisor” Game “Career Consultation” 5.2. Game career guidance exercises General characteristics of these methods (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “Who is who?” “Self-portrait” “Person-profession” (option of “Associations” in work with a subgroup) “Day in the life...” (“Dream in the life...”) “Chain of professions” “Traps” “Epitaph” 5.3. Card information retrieval techniques (“professionals”) General characteristics of these techniques (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “Who? What? Where?" "Formula" 5.4. Gaming card techniques General characteristics of these techniques (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “Man-Fate-Devil” “Psychobusiness” (using ordinary playing cards) 5.5. Board games for career guidance General characteristics of these methods (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “Either-Or” “Country of the Rich and Smart” 5.6. Schemes of analysis and self-analysis of situations of self-determination General characteristics of these methods (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “Octagon of the main factors of choosing a profession” (according to E.A. Klimov) Scheme of levels of formation of personal professional perspective (PPP) Scheme of alternative choice 5.7. Discussion games General characteristics of these techniques (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “ Wage employee" (ZPR) "Freedom, responsibility, justice" (SOS) 5.8. Card-form games General characteristics of these methods (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “Compliment” “Honey-turn” “Sir-sovereign” “Bloon” 5.9. Blank games with the class General characteristics of these methods (activating and diagnostic capabilities) “Business risk-man” “I am a partner” “Bargaining” 5.10. Activating questionnaires General characteristics of these methods (activating and diagnostic capabilities) Questionnaire based on the scheme for building a personal professional perspective (PPP) “Be prepared!” "How are you doing?" “Pros and cons” Test questions and practical tasks for Chapter 5 Conclusion Literature INTRODUCTION Currently, the relevance of career guidance work is increasing every year. The “market relations” developing in the country require self-determined school graduates (young people and everyone who plans their professional development) to be prepared to independently resolve their career issues and the ability to build their lives consciously and independently.
The manual presents theoretical issues of professional self-determination, issues of organization (Chapter 1) and planning of career guidance work at school (Chapter 2), provides recommendations for designing career guidance methods and programs for working with schoolchildren (Chapter 3), and provides examples of career guidance programs already used in different conditions (Chapter 4), as well as descriptions of various groups of the author’s activating methods of professional and personal self-determination (Chapter 5).
A special feature of this manual is that many theoretical questions are supported by appropriate practical techniques, which corresponds to the title of the work - “Professional self-determination: theory and practice.” Another feature of the manual is that it largely complements our other works devoted to career guidance issues, in particular, the educational and methodological manual “Career Guidance”, published by the Academy publishing house in 2005 (Pryazhnikova E.Yu., Pryazhnikov N.S. ., 2005). But if in the manual “Career Guidance” greater emphasis was placed on highlighting theoretical problems, then in this manual a slightly greater emphasis is placed on practical methods and consideration of various conditions for their implementation with schoolchildren.
As already noted, the manual pays great attention to the design of specific career guidance programs. The manual is structured in such a way that these programs, based on our general recommendations, can be compiled from our own proprietary methods, depending on the career guidance problems solved by the psychologist. We believe that uniform programs are less effective than variable ones, which could be changed each time and adapted to specific audiences of students. A wide variety of proprietary techniques will allow you to do this without difficulty.
Our methods are called activating, i.e. designed not only to create a higher interest in career guidance work and career consultations, but also to partially train schoolchildren to independently solve their problems. The methods themselves presented in the manual are more designed specifically for practical work, although some of them can also be used for research purposes. In this regard, in general characteristics For each of the groups of our activating techniques, we specifically highlight the “diagnostic capabilities of the techniques”, based on this. It is important to note that, unlike traditional diagnostic tools (tests, questionnaires, etc.), our methods presuppose a fairly developed professional and life experience of the psychologist using these methods, as well as his ability to “understand” and even “feel” his clients. Only then will the methods provide the psychologist with rich material for making professional consulting decisions (in scientific and practical surveys) or for scientific generalizations (already in research activities).
After each chapter the manual gives Control questions for self-testing of students and specialists. At the end of the fifth chapter, practical tasks are presented to develop students’ initial skills in carrying out the techniques. Please note that all of our activating techniques are not standardized, i.e. allow their significant modification in use. But as experience in communicating with practicing psychologists who use our methods in their work shows, it is better to use our recommendations at the initial stages of mastering the methods. And only then, having gained some experience and feeling confident, can you independently make changes to our methods, and in the future create your own methods based on them. For this purpose, the Chapter provides general recommendations for the design of activating professional consulting methods.
We hope that this manual will be useful for all professionals working with self-determined adolescents, as well as with those people who are deciding their career issues in our difficult times.
Chapter 1. ESSENCE OF PROFESSIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION 1.1. General trends in the development of career guidance. Cultural and historical meaning of the emergence of the problem of professional self-determination.
To understand what professional self-determination is, it is useful to ask the question: when and where should career guidance arise? The first career guidance laboratories appeared in 1903 in Strasbourg (France) and in 1908 in Boston (USA).
Usually the following reasons for the appearance of these first career guidance services are identified: the rapid growth of industry, the migration of people from rural areas to cities, the problem of finding work, the problem of selecting the most “suitable” people on the part of employers... But all these reasons are rather socio-economic... We are interested in understanding What are the psychological reasons for the emergence of career guidance? What has changed in people's minds? - ... The main psychological reason for the emergence of career guidance is that it was during this period and precisely in these countries that the problem of freedom of choice arose for a significant number of people. A significant part of the population headed to the cities in search of work and faced a situation where there was a choice. For many, this problem did not exist before (with the exception of certain people who did not want to live according to a pre-established, patriarchal order). Thus, it is precisely the problem of freedom of choice that has arisen before significant masses of people that is the most important psychological reason for the emergence of the problem of professional self-determination. And vocational guidance is just a way to help self-determining people. Let us note that the problem of self-determination is largely philosophical, since finding one’s calling in a profession largely means finding one’s place in the world and, most importantly, doing something valuable in this world, i.e. self-realization.
Development of career guidance in Russia.
The example of Russia clearly shows how the level of real freedom in society and the level of development of career guidance are connected (see more details - Pryazhnikova E.Yu., Pryazhnikov N.S., 2005, pp. 7-12). In pre-revolutionary Russia (early 20th century), there was no career guidance as a system and only a few enthusiasts were involved in it in gymnasiums and universities.
In the 20s of the 19th century, when the Bolsheviks came to power, but the position of J.V. Stalin had not yet strengthened, there was relative freedom (the whole country was still in a state of self-determination). In 1922, the first bureau for choosing a profession was created, and in 1927, the first vocational consultation bureau. Quite quickly, similar services appear in many large cities.
During the period of Stalinist totalitarianism (30s - 50s), career guidance was curtailed, and many specialists were repressed. In conditions when the Komsomol, the party and the government decide a lot for a person in his life, the person himself almost does not have to determine himself. Thus, in conditions of unfreedom, career guidance is not needed.
During the years of Khrushchev’s “thaw” (late 50s - early 60s), relative freedoms reappeared and career guidance was revived as one of the first among other areas of practical psychology. But time was lost and domestic career guidance noticeably lagged behind the Western one.
During the period of Brezhnev's rule (late 60s - early 80s), there was some infringement of freedoms, but career guidance is no longer prohibited as in the Stalin period, it is only placed within certain limits. This was a time when they tried to bring to the fore not the interests of a self-determining individual, but the interests of the national economy, the interests of defense capability, etc. It is clear that the population (and especially the youth) did not really respond to the calls of the party and government.
During the period of Gorbachev’s “perestroika” (the second half of the 90s), a lot of freedom appeared and career guidance was the first among the various areas of practical psychology to be truly revived. More than 60 regional centers for career guidance for youth were created throughout the then USSR, and active training of psychologists and career consultants began. The centers started working, and this was, in fact, the prototype of the country’s psychological service system.
During the reign of B.N. Yeltsin (90s), the financial situation of the country and a significant part of the population worsened.
Professional and career choices were often made not out of vocation, but out of necessity to somehow “make ends meet.”
We view this as a special kind of unfreedom.
Career guidance is not prohibited or controlled by the state, but at the same time it almost ceases to be funded. Many youth career guidance centers are falling apart before our eyes, and well-trained specialists at that time either go to commercial structures or engage in private consulting practice. But in parallel, employment services are developing, since real unemployment arises in society. By the end of the Yeltsin period, these services even began to work well (the situation obliged). True, then few people cared about how to help school graduates self-determinate; they were only encouraged to be “enterprising” and “adapt to market conditions”... During the reign of V.V. Putin, there has been some revival of socio-economic life (mainly due to a significant increase in global prices for oil and gas, which made it possible to increase budget expenditures, including on education).
The financial situation of many citizens of the Russian Federation has also improved somewhat, i.e.
economic freedom has expanded, allowing one to think beyond one’s daily bread. This allowed some part of the population to make professional choices more and more often in accordance with their desires, and not just “out of need.” Career guidance assistance is again becoming more in demand, although complete freedom is still far away.
In some schools, specialized training is being introduced, and career guidance for teenagers (as a component of specialized training) is officially returning to schools.
An analysis of the development of career guidance in Russia allows us to draw interesting conclusions:
1. The level of development of career guidance is largely related to the level of development of real freedom of choice in society.
2. The state plays an important role in the development of career guidance (we consider career guidance as the basis of state personnel policy).
3. The development of career guidance itself can (under certain conditions) contribute to the development and preservation of freedoms in society.
One of these conditions, in our opinion, is a certain financial and status independence of the professional consultants themselves, which would allow them not to be led by various administrators (who manage the money) and ideologists (who control everything that does not fit into the changing ideological schemes) , and decide for yourself how to help a person find a worthy place in society and how, through the main work of his life (through professional work), to contribute to the development (improvement) of this society.
General logic of the development of career guidance in countries with high psychological culture.
If we turn to the example of France, a country where for a long time theoretical and practical problems of helping young people choose a profession were solved very successfully, then we can conditionally identify the following stages in the development of career guidance - stages of “changing the main emphasis in work”: 1) in the 20s the emphasis was on employment (consequences of the war, unemployment);
2) in 40-50 years. – determining the professional suitability of clients using tests (the era of the global “testing boom”);
since the 70s - the predominant 3) direction has become “raising the ability of young people to make their own choices”... It is interesting that already in the 60-70s. As part of the “fight against testomania,” special private bureaus even began to appear, where future clients were taught how to “better” and “correctly”
answer test questions and, as a result, appear more advantageously before employers... Currently, in countries with a still low psychological culture, “testing is thriving” (in more developed countries they are trying to shift the emphasis to individual career consultations).
An analysis of American career guidance and “career psychology” shows that if by the end of the 70s, at a theoretical level, there had long been a departure from massive psychodiagnostics, then in practice, basically everyone continues to test students... However, in recent years, even in countries with developed psychological services, there is again a certain return to universal testing... This is explained not so much by the emergence of some new reliable tests, but by the established idea of many bosses, customers and clients that only tests are a real scientific means of helping in choosing a profession. Even in the development of the tests themselves, you have to “play along”
potential clients and customers. In this regard, A.G. Shmelev notes: “It is very difficult for any new test, no matter how scientifically advanced, to compete with “classical” methods, on which a huge amount of methodological literature has been accumulated. Even new computer tests, which have a lot of objective advantages (for example, flexible customization options for a specific test subject - the properties of the so-called “adaptive testing”), have difficulty making their way and still cannot compare in popularity with “classical” methods. It is no coincidence that many examples of modern computer tests are nothing more than computer versions of the booklet or “pencil-and-paper” methods that existed before them” (Shmelev A.G. et al., 1996, P.56).
In this situation, it is easier to “play along” a little with the client, boss or customer than to convince him. Moreover, tests still allow you to solve a number of problems: if used correctly, they can provide certain information about the client, with their help it is easy to form the client’s motivation for self-knowledge, etc. Probably, modern career consultants should still prepare themselves for the inevitability of using career guidance tests, if only in order not to “complicate their lives” in useless “showdowns” with clients and bosses and to devote more time, talent and effort to a creative approach to their work ... The evolution of the problem of professional self-determination.
In general, we can distinguish approximately the following stages in the development of the problem of professional self-determination, a peculiar shift in emphasis in the work of psychologists and professional consultants:
1) The specific adaptation stage, when the main thing is to help the client find any job that is more or less acceptable in terms of earnings. This is typical during periods of socio-economic distress and mass unemployment. The work of a consultant often comes down to the work of a “statist”, when you just need to listen to the client and offer him some of the available vacancies.
Naturally, given time and other conditions, deeper help is possible, for example, a psychodiagnostic examination and even psychotherapeutic support (ideally, help in finding meaning even in options that clearly do not correspond to a given person...). But often there is not enough time for this... As V.P. Zinchenko notes, “I prefer to determine IQ not with the help of tests, but by facial expression. Despite the enormous efforts to establish the validity of tests, many of them remain disabled” (Zinchenko V.P., 1995, P.15)… 2) Diagnostic and recommendatory. It is based on the “three-factor model of F. Parsons, which identifies three main factors (conditions) of effective career counseling: studying the requirements of the profession for a person - the first “factor”, studying a person’s qualities using tests - the second “factor”, comparing requirements with the qualities of a person and issuing a recommendation on suitability or unsuitability for a given profession is the third “factor”. At the same time, the qualities of a person and the requirements of the profession are considered as relatively stable, which serves as the basis for an “objective” choice... Although in reality, the qualities of a person change, and the profession itself may change (which raises doubts when implementing such an approach to counseling adolescents who have a long time to come have to learn, and accordingly, many professional consulting recommendations for them quickly become “morally” outdated).
3) Artificial “fitting” of a person and a profession, when both the requirements of the profession and the characteristics of a particular person are taken into account. The following main options for implementing this approach are possible: deception, manipulation, campaigning for unattractive professions (were common in the 60-80s in the USSR);
skillfully selling oneself on the “labor market” (this is, rather, a deception by a specially trained person of enterprises and the state as a whole, for example, now there are a lot of manuals on “effectively building a career” based on “skillfully selling oneself to the employer”);
development of techniques with elements of manipulation (for example, after an examination, many “suddenly” show interest in the “required”
professions...).
4) Diagnostic-corrective, diagnostic-developmental professional consultation. In contrast to the diagnostic-recommendatory model of career guidance assistance, based on the invariability of the qualities and requirements of professions, here an attempt is made to take into account changes in the chosen professions, in their requirements for a person, as well as to take into account changes in the client (optant) himself. An important feature of this type of assistance is the opportunity to improve something in your situation, adjust your qualities, and also constantly adjust your choices depending on changing requirements of the profession.
5) Taking into account a changing society. In addition to changing professions and a changing person, the dynamics of social processes are taken into account. The profession itself is increasingly beginning to be seen as a means for building one’s success in life, as well as a means for finding one’s place in a given society with the help of a profession. The basic concepts characteristic of this level of development of career guidance are: professional and life success, career, lifestyle... 6) Taking into account the change (development) of the “value-moral, semantic core” of a self-determining person. At this level of career guidance assistance, the change in a self-determining person’s ideas about the very meaning of his professional choice is taken into account. It is also not just “success” that is taken into account, but also the “moral price” for such success. The main concepts here are: conscience, self-esteem, the meaning of life and chosen professional activity.
Reaching higher (and more complex) levels of career guidance development gives rise to special problems, in particular:
1) Unclarity of the vector of development (change) of society, when it becomes difficult to determine one’s place in such an “uncertain”
(or, better said, in a “under-self-determined”) society. In such a situation, it is important to form the client’s readiness for various options for self-determination, as well as a readiness to navigate not only in real society, but also at least some attempts to predict (in his own way) changes in society... 2) Ambiguity with the ideals of personal and professional self-determination ( what he strives for, who to follow as an example...). This is, first of all, the problem of the “elite” (elite orientations), so unloved and painful for many psychologists. Meanwhile, E. Erikson wrote that it is very important for a teenager to define “aristocracy” for himself.
(a sample of “the best people”) and “ideology” to justify their life choices (Erikson E., 2000, P.251)… 1.2. Professional self-determination as a search for meaning The concept of “self-determination” is fully correlated with such currently fashionable concepts as self-actualization, self-realization, self-realization, self-transcendence... Often self-realization, self-actualization, etc. associated with labor activity, with work, namely, with finding meaning in one’s work.
All this allows us to define the essence of professional self-determination as the search and finding of personal meaning in the chosen, mastered and already performed work activity, as well as finding meaning in the process of self-determination itself.
At the same time, the paradox of self-determination is immediately revealed (as well as the paradox of happiness): the found meaning immediately devalues life (a kind of “emptiness” is formed). Therefore, the process of searching for meaning is no less important, where individual (already found) meanings are only intermediate stages of the process (the process itself becomes the main meaning - this is life, life as a process, and not as some kind of “achievement”).
With a more creative approach to one's life, the meaning itself is created anew by a person. It is in this case that a person turns into a true subject of self-determination, and does not simply act as a conductor of some “higher” meanings... One of the most difficult (and at the same time creative) problems is the search for meaning for a specific self-determining client.
But there cannot be a single meaning (the same for everyone). The only exceptions are eras of wars and moral trials, when the people or certain sections of society are united by a single idea... 1.3. “Subject of professional self-determination” and the main stages of its development The most famous in Russia is the periodization of human development as a subject of labor by E.A. Klimova (1996):
1. The pre-game stage (from birth to 3 years), when the functions of perception, movement, speech, the simplest rules of behavior and moral assessments are mastered, which become the basis for further development and introduction of a person to work.
2. The stage of play (from 3 to 6-8 years), when the “basic meanings” of human activity are mastered, as well as familiarity with specific professions (playing a driver, a doctor, a salesman, a teacher...), which is the most important condition for their future socialization. Note that D.B. Elkonin, following G.V. Plekhanov, wrote that “game is the child of labor,” and the very emergence of children’s role-playing games occurred when the child could no longer directly master the work of adults , when the historical division and complication of labor occurred (see Elkonin D.B., 1978).
True, in the modern world there is increasingly a situation where children in their games reproduce the activities of adults less and less (see Karabanova O.A., 2005, P. 197). This is probably due to the complication of the world of adults, when direct relationships are lost the quality and social usefulness of labor, on the one hand, and the standard of living of workers, on the other hand, when even money (in the form of wages) often does not reflect the labor invested in it (see Zarubina I.K., 2007).
3. The stage of mastering educational activities (from 6-8 to 11 years), when the functions of self-control, introspection, the ability to plan one’s activities, etc. intensively develop.
It is especially important when a child independently plans his time when doing homework, overcoming his desire to take a walk and relax after school.
4. Stage of “option” (optatio - from Latin - desire, choice) (from 11 to 14-18 years). This is the stage of preparation for life, for work, conscious and responsible planning and choice of a professional path;
Accordingly, a person who is in a situation of professional self-determination is called an “optant”. The paradox of this stage lies in the fact that an adult, for example, an unemployed person, may well find himself in the “optant” situation;
as E.A. Klimov himself noted, “option is not so much an indication of age” as of the situation of choosing a profession.
5. The “adept” stage is the professional training that most school leavers undergo.
6. The “adapter” stage is entry into the profession after completion of vocational training, lasting from several months to 2-3 years.
7. The “internal” stage is entering the profession as a full-fledged colleague, capable of stably working at a normal level. This is the stage about which E.A. Klimov says that colleagues perceive an employee as “one of their own,” i.e. the employee has already entered the professional community as a full member (“inter-”
and means: entered “inside”, became “one of our own”).
8. The “master” stage, when one can say about the employee: “the best”
among the “normal”, among the “good”, i.e. the employee stands out noticeably from the general background.
10. “Mentor” stage – highest level work of any specialist. This stage is interesting because the employee is not just an excellent specialist in his field, but turns such a specialist into a Teacher, capable of passing on his best experience to his students and embodying part of his soul in them ( the best part souls).
Thus, the highest level of development of any specialist is pedagogical level. Let us note that it is pedagogy and education that are the core of human culture, since they ensure the continuity and preservation of the best experience of mankind.
A professional who has become a Mentor-Teacher, in his own way, is also a cultural being in the best sense of the word.
The question remains: how many professionals strive for this level of professional development?
1.4. The main factors of professional self-determination E.A. Klimov offers an interesting model - “an octagon of the main factors of choosing a profession” (Klimov E.A., 1990, pp. 121-128), which characterize the situation of professional self-determination and determine the very quality of a teenager’s professional plans: 1) taking into account one’s inclinations (compared to interests, inclinations are more stable);
2) taking into account abilities, external and internal capabilities;
3) taking into account the prestige of the chosen profession;
4) taking into account awareness of it;
5) taking into account the position of parents;
6) taking into account the position of classmates, friends and peers;
7) taking into account the needs of production (“market”), and 8) the presence of a specific program of action for choosing and achieving professional goals - from a personal professional perspective (PPP). The LPP is considered successful when it is built taking into account all the listed factors.
When working with schoolchildren, the factors for choosing a profession are indicated in the form of an “octagon”, and when assessing (or self-assessing) the situation of professional choice, lines indicate the connections of the LPP with certain factors (for example, if the LPP is constructed without taking into account this factor, then the line is not drawn) . In this form, the “octagon of main choice factors” clearly reflects the teenager being consulted and allows him to clarify his career guidance problems himself (see Chapter 5, section 5.6).
1.5. The image of success in life as the most important regulator of professional choices Self-esteem as the “highest good” and the possible meaning of professional self-determination.
Even E. Fromm, discussing the “non-alienated character” (i.e., a full-fledged personality), noted with regret that “the twentieth century shines with the absence of images of a worthy person in a worthy society,” because
everyone focused on criticizing the images and ideals that were proposed various thinkers in previous eras (Fromm E., 1992, p. 84). But a self-determined person, especially a teenager, really needs such an image.
The famous philosopher and sociologist J. Rawls identifies self-esteem as a “primary good” and believes that it is the underdevelopment or infringement of this feeling that underlies both personal tragedies and the ill-being of society. At the same time, the very desire to be a respected and worthy member of society can be realized in different ways (Rawls J., 1995, P.385). For example, through asserting one’s own superiority over other people with the help of external symbols of elitism (expensive and fashionable clothes and household items, connections with influential people, special, “elite”
manners of behavior, etc.). All this can be called “pseudo elitism”, i.e. focusing on purely external resemblance to so-called “successful” people.
One could even designate various options for how a person relates himself to the elite: 1) as “superiority” over other people (to be better than others);
2) as “involvement” in some elite (already recognized by the majority) groups and 3) as “staying outside” any elite groups, as following one’s original path, when the person himself is the master of his life (Pryazhnikov N.S., 2000, pp. 124-127). At the same time, each person has the right to choose for himself which version of “elite orientations” will quickly lead him to happiness (success, an attractive lifestyle, etc.). It is also interesting that the path to success itself is no less important in achieving success, just as self-determination presupposes not only finding the meaning of one’s life and professional work, but also a constant search and clarification of this meaning... But self-esteem can also be realized through creative work, and through personal action, and through real help to a loved one... This is closer to what is called “true elitism,” when a person approaches full self-realization. The underestimation by psychologists of the problem of elite orientations in the formation of a semantic picture of the world indicates a lack of understanding of the role of such orientations (primarily value-semantic orientations) in the self-determination of adolescents, because it is known that a teenager, in his desire for the best, for an ideal, is one way or another forced to build certain social psychological hierarchies. But if these are false hierarchies, and, accordingly, false orientations based on imitation of the pseudo-elite, then self-determination will be incomplete.
Naturally, it would be absurd to assert any “correct,” “true,” elitist orientations: the main thing is to note the need for a special discussion with self-determined adolescents of this problem, especially since many adolescents have a need for this.
The very problem of dividing people into “best” and “worst” is one of the central and, at the same time, one of the most painful for the formation of the value-semantic and moral core of a self-determining person. Of course, it would be easier to pretend that this problem does not exist (this is a very “inconvenient” problem to discuss), although everyone has already recognized that there cannot be absolute equality between people. Some psychologists, recognizing the fact of inequality, believe that people should be divided not according to the principle of “bad” or “good”, but according to the principle “all people are good, but different”... However, here, too, a self-determining teenager in reality is faced with a completely different picture: someone studies better, someone studies worse; in teenage love, preferences are also determined along the lines of “better (more worthy) - “worst” (undeserving), etc.
The idea of the same “goodness” of all people is more suitable for working with patients (in clinical and psychotherapeutic practice) than for working with healthy young people focused on real (rather than therapeutic-illusory) self-improvement.
Some psychologists, realizing the inconsistency of the idea of equal “goodness,” declare that every person is necessarily “good” in at least one thing, but in other characteristics he may be inferior to other people, i.e. to be “worse” than them. This point of view seems more reasonable, although if for the teenager himself, inferiority in some characteristic is much more significant than his superiority in another characteristic, then this does not make the teenager less worried, i.e. again he is suffering...
At the same time, suffering itself is often the most important condition for development. young man, especially the condition of his moral development.
The role of modern media in the formation of professional and life aspirations of a self-determining individual.
Modern media are a powerful means of influencing the consciousness of self-determined youth (and not only youth). The media can act as an ally of professional psychologists, allowing them through cycles of television programs, through special sections in periodicals, etc. to consider important issues of professional and personal self-determination in an interesting and discussion form in front of a wide audience. But the media can largely negate the efforts of teachers and psychologists aimed at forming a full-fledged, socially active subject of self-determination, ultimately forming a “standard person” focused on the values of “mass society.”
As R. Mills notes, “Mass means of communication have penetrated not only into the area of our knowledge of external reality, they have penetrated into the area of our self-knowledge... they tell a person... they tell him what he would like to be, i.e.
form his aspirations... and tell him how to achieve this, i.e. instill in him ways and means of fulfilling his desires” (Mills R., 1959, P.421-422)… In this case, the media should be considered as a real “competitor” of professional consultants.
Accordingly, professional psychologists must realize the danger of such competition and look for ways to counter the manipulative influence of media dependent on the bankrupt government and oligarchs.
Here is how B.S. Bratus assesses the modern Russian press:
“Our press is infected today with the destructive bacillus of ridicule of everything and everyone. This is somewhat painful. Without giving the opportunity to understand what is happening, people are drawn into this general ridicule and ridicule” (see Interview with B.S. Bratus, 1998, p. 15).
To put it figuratively, then, unfortunately, the “forces of evil and decay” have long adopted laughter, humor, irony and, it must be admitted, use them very skillfully to manipulate public consciousness, especially among young people. Contrary to old ideas, laughter does not always defeat evil: laughter itself can be evil and even painful... Noting the special role of laughter in the development of human culture, L.V. Karasev in his work “Philosophy of Laughter”
nevertheless, he notes: “By laughing, we submit to someone else’s will - the will of laughter... It is not we who are free, but laughter. It is he who is free to dispose of us, to subordinate us to his power, to impose his illusions and hopes. Laughter in the face of danger is the laughter of the strong, but it should not deceive us.
The “measure” of laughter is different for each person, but the main thing remains unchanged - the independence of laughter and its power over us” (see Karasev, 1996, pp. 199-200).
Laughter has proven to be an excellent means of suppressing the will of people, especially those people who are afraid of their own thoughts and feelings and strive to be closer to the “strong” ones.
(laughing) individuals.
A teenager in his professional and life choices is often guided by the opinions of those whom he considers “strong” and “successful” in life. this world. But it often turns out that such people often achieve their external well-being in dubious ways.
Often, at the same time, they themselves intuitively feel their inner inferiority and, with the help of laughter, they try to trivialize more worthy ways of achieving success in life, for which they themselves were (for various reasons) not ready. Therefore, the most important psychological and pedagogical task is to develop in a teenager immunity against such vulgarity, as well as the willingness to distinguish between genuine success (with preserved conscience and self-esteem) from imaginary success (when a person asserts himself only through external symbols of success, behind which there is spiritual emptiness) Only in this case, the student will not depend on the opinions of others (for example, on the opinions of his “get-together”) and at important moments in life will be able to demonstrate his readiness for a truly moral act, which will be the basis for his sense of self-worth (as the most important ethical category). Everything that has been said applies even more to a psychology teacher, a practicing psychologist and a professional consultant... 1.6. Socio-psychological and professional “spaces” of personal self-determination. Various typologies of professional and personal self-determination.
Today, the most popular typology in Russia belongs to E.A. Klimov, who identified five spheres of labor according to the principle of human interaction with the primary subject of labor (Klimov E.A., 1990, pp. 110-115): 1) man - nature;
2) man - technology;
3) man - sign systems;
4) a person is a person and 5) a person is an artistic image. It is interesting that foreign typologies often highlight similar areas of work. But at the same time something new is added. For example, such a “type of professional environment” as “entrepreneurial” (in D. Holland), and in earlier typologies - also the spheres of “politics” or “religion” (in E. Spranger), etc. Analysis of such typologies shows that they largely reflect the cultural and historical situation that has developed in a given society. This means that E.A. Klimov’s typology, for all its attractiveness, effectiveness and familiarity, is still a little outdated and does not reflect the situation in modern Russia.
In order for a career consultant to rely on a typology that is more adequate to the situation, one should either specifically develop a new typology, or look for some kind of universal typology that is adequate to different cultural and historical situations.
Various options for planning professional development.
To begin with, it is useful to understand how the concepts of “professional choice” and “personal professional plan” fundamentally differ.
and “personal professional perspective.”
Professional choice is focused on the near future. For example, choosing a specific vocational educational institution. Next, there may be a choice (clarification) of a specialty, department, faculty... During the course of training, there may be other choices:
scientific supervisor, place of practical training. Various special courses, etc. Upon completion, choose a place of work. Thus, the whole career is a series of choices. Therefore, it cannot be said that an unsuccessful choice of profession will make your whole life unsuccessful. Even a bad choice can be largely corrected by other (subsequent) choices. Although, of course, it is better to make fewer such unsuccessful choices.
A professional plan is a clear sequence of actions to achieve specific goals, to the point that you can plan on specific days and times a visit to “open days”, a meeting with a career consultant, etc. A plan often allows you to present complex (at first glance) professional goals in the form of simpler actions (or tasks) that are completely understandable and easy to implement.
The professional perspective is more generalized; it is usually focused on the distant future, and therefore is less specific. A professional perspective is usually more optimistic (the word “prospect” itself contains something good and desirable). It is often on the basis of perspective that various (more specific) plans are developed. In this case, there may be one perspective, but there may be several plans for the implementation of this perspective. And here the problem of choosing the most successful plans arises.
And the basis of professional prospects, and the basis of professional plans, and even professional choices are the value and semantic orientations of a given person. Each time he seems to ask himself the question: will this choice, plan or prospect allow him to achieve the desired lifestyle, to success?
Below are the main options for planning professional development:
1. Target option, when a person is more focused on complex and prestigious goals, but takes little into account his real capabilities. That's why this option can be called "romantic".
Often such plans are difficult to implement, so career counselors try to reorient clients towards more realistic goals. But sometimes, if the client is a strong personality, complex goals can mobilize him and he quickly expands his capabilities (works on himself) in order to implement even complex plans. But not everyone succeeds.
2. Realistic option. Here a person, on the contrary, does not set difficult goals for himself, but takes more into account his real capabilities and, as it were, selects professional goals to match these capabilities. Usually a person achieves such modest goals, although he often regrets that he did not even try to achieve more interesting and complex goals. Sometimes it happens that a person, having already begun to implement such plans, discovers more interesting opportunities in himself. And then other, more difficult choices and plans, i.e. It is quite acceptable to adjust plans.
3. “Event approach”, which is based on the interesting idea that all life is a series of interconnected (and mutually determined) events. An event is understood as relatively compact in time, but very important (significant, bright) for a person’s entire life. Often mature or elderly people, remembering their lives, highlight just such bright events (and it is quite difficult to remember a whole life in all its details). Sometimes they even say that if there were no such events in life, then life did not work out. There is even an interesting technique (see E.I. Golovakha, A.A. Kronik, 1984), where a “life perspective” is built from the events of the past, present and expected future, which is then analyzed together with the client and determined (and sometimes the most important events of life are planned.
4. “Scenario approach”, which is based on typical life scenarios, based on which many people plan their lives.
These scenarios are set by a given culture and are original models by which one can live (see Bern E., 1988, pp. 285-351;
Pryazhnikova E.Yu., Pryazhnikov N.S., 2005, pp. 154-160). The peculiarity of many scenarios is that society approves of most of them, therefore, a person who plans his life according to such patterns is understandable to others and has much fewer problems than those who plan their life in some unusual, original, creative way. ... On the one hand, a person does not realize his right to be a “subject”
self-determination, since it follows ready-made models. But, on the other hand, most people are not ready to be full-fledged “subjects” of self-determination - this, unfortunately, is a reality associated with insufficient career guidance work. And then ready-made scripts often help such people to at least somehow self-determinate in our complex world. True, they still have the opportunity to choose the most attractive scenario, i.e. They show at least some subjectivity in self-determination.
5. Creative options for planning professional development.
The basis here is the desire to build an original life, not very similar to anything else. The more original the professional and life plans and their implementation, the more interesting they are for others, and the more reason a person has to be proud that his life is unique and no one else has such a life (which means he did not live in vain). The main problem in implementing this creative approach the fact is that this is little understood by others and often a creative person is lonely, or even condemned by the majority of those around him. For example, a creative person is not interested without experiences (without the “tragedy” of life), without “unexpected turns of fate,” without internal or external “problems” that must be overcome (and then be proud of it), etc.
But is this interesting to everyone?
And, nevertheless, it is precisely this option that is promoted by many thinkers of the humanistic direction and is even considered as a kind of ideal of self-determination, self-realization, self-actualization, self-transcendence, etc. True, for the majority such an “ideal”
complicated and unattractive. Therefore, in actual professional consulting work, a psychologist should talk about this option for planning professional development very carefully. And at the same time, it’s also impossible not to say about this. The following outline of a conversation with a client is suggested. After establishing a trusting contact with the client, perhaps not even at the first consultation, you can briefly outline the different options (as if to broaden the client’s general horizons), outlining the “pros” and “cons” of each option. Perhaps the client will be interested in some options, and then we can work with them in more detail. It is quite possible that, having started with attractive and complex options, the client will then move on to simpler, understandable and accessible ones. This is also a search process and it may not be unambiguous.
1.7. Main mistakes and prejudices when planning a career E.A. Klimov identifies the following main difficulties and mistakes when choosing a profession (Klimov, 1990, pp. 128-134):
1. Attitude to the choice of profession as to the choice of a permanent island in the world of professions. This creates a feeling of "fatality"
choice. When a bad choice can ruin your whole life. In fact, all life is constantly alternating elections (according to D. Super). Even K. Marx opposed the “vocation” that assigns a person to a certain labor function and called for a person to constantly master more and more new types of activity in the course of life, and this is what ensures his “harmonious development.” He even wrote that “the nature of large-scale industry requires a constant movement of labor,” when “every five years a worker will be forced to change his profession,” which is associated with the constant change and development of production itself.
K. Marx's predictions were partially confirmed, and in modern enterprises, successful careers are more likely to develop for those who master at least related professions.
2. Prejudices of honor, when some professions are considered “shameful”, intended for “second-class” people. This problem is complex, but we must understand that every work is important for society. It is not for nothing that in the civilized West, such non-prestigious professions as “garbage collector” are increasingly paid quite highly and, conversely, workers in prestigious creative professions do not always receive high salaries. One explanation: the creative work itself is already a high reward and then. If everyone wants to be prestigious creators, then who will clean up the garbage?... Regarding garbage, you can also note that culture generally begins with the fact that the produced garbage is not left behind, but is removed, or the energy of the garbage is somehow accumulated into a different quality.
3.Choice of a profession under the direct or indirect influence of comrades. On the one hand, you should listen to the opinions of friends who know each other well and sometimes give honest and informed advice. But often, focusing on the opinions of his comrades, a teenager makes the same professional choices as they do - this is called choosing “for the company.” And if the comrade himself even justified his choice for himself, this does not mean that his friends should follow him. Still, each person should have his own choice, his own happiness.
4. Transfer of attitude from a person - a representative of a particular profession - to the profession itself. For example, a teenager knows an adult who is a wonderful person involved in science. And then the teenager begins to think that all scientists are wonderful people. Although it is known that people with very difficult characters often work in creative professions, which often gives rise to difficult relationships in work teams (envy, squabbles, outright bullying of the most creative workers, etc.). And communicating with such people is quite difficult. Therefore, severe disappointments may arise in the future. We must remember that the profession itself does not always gather the best people into its ranks. And there are wonderful (smart, decent) people in every profession, even among scientists.
5. Passion for some external or some private party professions. For example, in the profession of a geologist, a student may be attracted by the opportunity to travel, but it is not taken into account that a geologist has a lot of painstaking and even routine work associated with the finest observations, chemical analyses, recordings and processing of results. Therefore, all the various characteristics of the future profession should be taken into account.
6. Identification of a school subject with a profession (or poor differentiation of these realities). Of course, ideally, educational subjects should also fulfill a career guidance role, i.e. to guide schoolchildren in relevant professional activities. But in reality, many academic subjects are taught too academically and are actually divorced from practice. For example, history as an academic subject does not always correspond to the work of a real historian, who literally “suffers” (meaning “creative torment”, which is a natural and even happy state for a seeking person) from the inability to understand the specifics of the era in which he himself lives . Education itself is usually more conservative (and even dogmatic) in nature, when pupils and students are more familiar with the conservative part of a given science or a given field of production, while real practice is more focused on solving specific problematic issues. And the solution to these problems practical issues involves special difficulties in professional communication with colleagues, managers, customers, clients and other people, which is clearly not talked about enough in school.
7. Outdated ideas about the nature of labor in the sphere of material production. E.A. Klimov meant that many technical professions previously included a significant element of “manual” and even routine labor, and were also associated with not very favorable conditions (increased pollution, noise, risk of injury, etc.). In many modern enterprises, workers work in much more comfortable (ergonomic) conditions, and it’s not for nothing that the term “blue collar” even appeared, when you can work, if not in white shirts, but quite decently dressed. Indeed, in modern production, more and more technological processes are automated and do not require, as before, large physical and psychophysiological costs.
8. Inability to understand, lack of habit of understanding one’s personal qualities (inclinations, abilities, preparedness).
Of course, this is not an easy matter,” notes E.A. Klimov. But an obvious failure to take into account one’s inclinations and one’s readiness often leads to the fact that the intended goals are not achieved or one has to pay heavily for achievements with one’s health and nerves, which does not fit in with a successful choice that brings satisfaction and happiness to a person.
9. Ignorance or underestimation of one’s physical characteristics and shortcomings, which are significant when choosing a profession. Here, too, there may be difficulties in achieving the intended goals and difficulties in the professional activity itself. For example, a job that requires excellent health, endurance, stress resistance can cause in an unprepared person not only nervous breakdowns and mental illness, but also lead to accidents and disasters, which can have very serious consequences for others.
10. Ignorance of basic actions, operations and the order of their implementation when solving or thinking about the problem of choosing a profession. And then situations arise when a person wants to choose the right profession, but acts more chaotically than energetically, when, despite the outward appearance of some kind of activity, the result may not be successful. And here not only individual advice and consultations from specialists can help, but ideally, systematic career guidance. And on the part of a self-determining person, it is important to be active in finding those specialists who could competently help in making the right professional and life choices.
To the typical mistakes identified by E.A. Klimov, we can add other erroneous actions of many self-determined people:
11.In search of consultants and advisors, they often turn to commercial psychological centers, where clients (schoolchildren and their parents) are charged fairly high fees. The fact is that high fees do not always correspond to high-quality assistance.
12.Excessive trust in psychologists-vocational consultants, who, although they try to provide effective assistance, do not always do it successfully either. For example, in paid consulting, in order to somehow justify high fees, the consultant builds his relationship with the client on outright manipulation (charms him and imposes his choices or pampers him with beautiful conversations, or even simply trivially tests him with the help of exotic foreign tests and gives out scientifically , but poorly substantiated recommendations). Of course, we do not advise you to be wary of professional consultants (including private practitioners), but if possible, you should sometimes double-check their recommendations, and most importantly, understand that responsibility for elections lies with the self-determining person himself.
13. Inability and unwillingness to think about the prospects for the development of society (and production). At the same time, elections are often made with a focus on today, when some professions are in demand, but in the future these professions may turn out to be redundant (according to the laws of the market, when there is too much of something, it loses its value and “market price”) or a need will arise in other professions.
The complexity of such forecasts of the socio-economic development of society is often associated with the fear of really looking at the situation in our country. Therefore, full self-determination often means overcoming the fear of thinking about the problems of the society in which a person is going to find a place for the pack.
Test questions for Chapter 1:
1. What are the psychological reasons for the emergence of career guidance as a special scientific and practical direction at the beginning of the 19th century in countries or Western Europe and North America?
2.What is more important for full professional self-determination, finding meaning in the chosen profession or finding meaning in the search for meaning itself? Why?
3.Can every school graduate be called a “subject of professional self-determination”?
4.What role does modern media play in shaping the image of professional and life success?
5. Should a professional psychologist consider dubious career planning options (criminal or involving severe humiliation when making career steps)?
Chapter 2. ORGANIZATIONAL AND PRACTICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION 2.1. Goals and objectives of professional self-determination Conventionally, the following main groups of objectives of professional self-determination can be distinguished: 1) information and reference, educational;
2) diagnostic (ideally, assistance in self-knowledge);
3) moral and emotional support for the client;
4) assistance in choosing, in making decisions.
Each of these problems can be solved using different levels difficulties: 1) the problem is solved “instead” of the client (the client takes a passive position and is not yet the “subject” of choice);
2) the problem is solved “together” (jointly) with the client - dialogue, interaction, cooperation, which still needs to be achieved (if successful, the client is already a partial subject of self-determination) ... 3) the gradual formation of the client’s readiness to solve his problems independently (the client becomes true subject).
For example, when solving an information and reference task, at the first level the client is simply informed of the necessary information (this is also help!), at the second level - the psychologist analyzes certain information together with the client, at the third level - the psychologist explains to the client how to independently obtain the necessary information (what ask questions to specialists in this profession, where to contact, etc.).
To reach the third level of assistance, it is often necessary to first organize interaction with the client at the second level. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to help the client, limiting yourself to only the first level (for example, in cases where you need to make a quick decision, but there is not enough time for this...).
The main (ideal) goal of professional self-determination is to gradually form in the client the internal readiness to independently and consciously plan, adjust and realize the prospects for their development (professional, life and personal).
This goal is called ideal because it is very rarely possible to achieve it, but ideals, as we know, exist not in order to achieve them, but in order to indicate the direction of one’s aspirations.
Gradual formation means that such complex issues are not resolved quickly (professional consultation “in one sitting” is “profanation”). Career counseling involves not only traditional “planning,” but also timely adjustment of one’s plans (as already noted, the most important result of career guidance assistance is not only the promotion of a specific choice, but also the formation of the ability to make new choices). The realization of professional prospects presupposes at least the moral inspiration of the client to take the first steps towards his goals. As well as initial monitoring of the success of these steps.
Professional development must necessarily be considered in the context of life and in the context of personal development.
The main goal of professional self-determination can be formulated somewhat differently: the gradual formation in the client of a willingness to consider himself developing within a certain time, space and meaning, to constantly expand his capabilities and realize them to the maximum (close to “self-transcendence” - according to V. Frankl) ... 2.2. Organizational principles of career guidance As is known, the principles set a system of “restrictions” and “permissions” in the work of a specialist. In the structure of methodological knowledge, the principles themselves are determined after identifying the goals and meanings of activity (general philosophical level), as well as after clarifying the subject and method of activity (specific scientific level). And after this, based on these principles, specific technologies for research and practical activities are developed, i.e. the principles seem to set a certain “framework”, and even designate the “vector” itself
work to achieve the intended goals.
Various authors highlight the principles of professional counseling. Below, using several examples, we will show that the idea of taking into account diverse realities (in fact, the principle of “realism”) is present everywhere, and sometimes this idea can be found even in principles that are differently formulated.
For example, E.A. Klimov identified the following basic principles for preparing young people for work and choosing a profession: 1) cultivating the complete psychological structure of work;
2) fostering equal respect for different types of professional work as socially equivalent;
3) acquaintance with professions as an organic link in the formation of a worldview;
4) reliance on a formative, educational approach (as opposed to a “screening” approach);
5) helping a person not as compensation for his “helplessness”, but as activating his life position;
6) consistent implementation of the right and opportunities of a growing person to consciously and freely choose a profession in connection with a realistic assessment of himself and his specific life situation;
7) a combination of mass forms of work with group and individual approaches (Klimov, 1985, P.6-8).
Particularly interesting for us is the sixth principle, which talks about “a realistic assessment of oneself and a specific life situation.” True, E.A. Klimov wrote about this back in the Soviet period, but the “principle of realism” had already, in fact, been outlined, especially since in Soviet times there were also difficulties in understanding “realism”
socio-economic situation.
We can identify a whole system of principles of professional self-determination, which includes the following main blocks (see.
Pryazhnikov, 1995, P.31-34):
1. Specific methodological: 1) cultural and historical conditionality of self-determination;
2) personal and individual approach to the client;
3) consistency;
4) consistency;
5) gradualism (implying taking into account the real situation of the client’s development);
6) priority of value and moral orientations in self-determination (it is also assumed that the level of moral development of a particular client is taken into account).
2. Organizational and managerial principles are divided into two subgroups:
The first subgroup is the principles of organizing professional consulting assistance: 1) variety of forms and methods of work;
2) “environmental friendliness” (morality, orientation towards ethically acceptable work goals);
3) continuity (taking into account previous experience);
4) flexibility;
5) prioritization;
6) self-activation (and responsibility) of various subjects of the career guidance system;
7) formation of a professional community;
8) flexibility, willingness to make reasonable compromises (close to the principle of specificity and the principle of realism);
9) effective optimism and reasonable self-irony;
10) interconnection of principles (close to the principle of consistency).
The second subgroup is the principles of organizing the training of professional consultants: 1) promoting the creative self-realization of specialists;
2) combining theoretical training with methodological and practical training (with the gradual formation of readiness to independently design the means of one’s professional activities);
3) taking into account the professional and life experience of training specialists (close to the principle of realism);
4) formation of a full-fledged value-moral basis of professional activity.
3. Specific practical principles: 1) taking into account the real audience and the characteristics of specific clients;
2) taking into account the real conditions of using specific techniques;
3) taking into account the consultant’s own readiness to provide assistance;
4) alternating different forms and methods of work;
5) taking into account the characteristics of the methodology used (its dynamism, attractiveness, etc.);
6) complementarity of methods (combination of actual career guidance and auxiliary methods);
7) dialogical nature of professional consulting work;
8) priority of activating methods.
Note that in this group the first three principles directly correlate with the idea of taking into account the real working conditions of a consultant and, in fact, are a concretization of the “reality principle”.
4. Ethical principles: 1) “do no harm”;
2) do not attach evaluative “labels”;
3) strive for a benevolent understanding of the client (clarification of the principle of “unconditional acceptance of the client”);
3) confidentiality;
4) a combination of voluntariness and obligation when using certain methods;
5) do not sort things out with colleagues in the presence of clients;
6) treat any client with respect (take into account his real characteristics);
7) do not assert yourself at the expense of the client;
8) respect yourself as a specialist (career consultant) and as a person.
The principle of "reality".
As can be seen from the examples above, many of the principles include the idea of taking into account the different realities of the career counseling situation. In this regard, it would be appropriate to talk about taking these realities into account as a “meta-principle” of professional counseling. In fact, when solving any consulting task, you first have to “understand” (and sometimes “feel”) the real situation of consulting and a specific client, and only then try to somehow improve it. And in a more complete (ideal) understanding, the principle of reality involves not only a truthful assessment of the current situation, but also the creation of a new reality, both in terms of interaction with the client and in terms of improving the situation of his self-determination.
In psychology and pedagogy, technologies are developed based on principles, as well as individual means of professional activity. At the same time, the principles, being derived from value-semantic attitudes, goals and the subject of activity, should better organize the activities of a psychologist researcher, a designer of psychotechnologies, and a practicing psychologist. And in this sense, the activities of psychologists and teachers become expedient.
But in the current situation in the Russian labor market, the goals of one of the most important areas of psychological practice of professional counseling are becoming more and more confusing and contradictory. On the one hand, assistance in professional and personal self-determination is declared, often understood as finding one’s calling and personal meaning in realizing one’s strengths for the benefit of society. On the other hand, in reality, many teenagers and young people, when choosing a profession, focus more on the values of comfort and earnings, caring little about their calling and, even more so, about serving their country.
The parents of many young people “aggravate” the situation even more by persistently directing them towards highly profitable professions (often ethically questionable), with little concern for how these professions correspond to the interests and abilities of their children, how much children will be able to realize their real (often quite high) and spiritually rich) potential in these types of activities. And “strengthen”
This is the mood of modern Russian media. Hence, there is a need to specifically understand how scientific and “everyday” ideas about the essence of professional consulting assistance correlate.
Analysis various systems These principles allow us to identify two main ideas that regulate and largely determine the activities of a psychologist-vocational consultant: 1) taking into account external and internal realities (the characteristics of a given client and his situation);
2) orientation towards a “better” reality, because the point of any counseling is to improve this reality. In other words, we can say that the consultant has to work with two planes of reality, or in another way - with a changing reality, when the main reality is not so much a static situation as its constant change (ideally, “improvement”).
And then it is important to understand what these realities are.
If we are talking about taking into account this reality (external and internal), we are forced to admit that in many ways it leaves much to be desired (that is why the client comes to a consultation because he is not satisfied with his current situation). Internal reality consists of taking into account the client’s desires, his internal capabilities (abilities, level of education, state of health, etc.), his willingness to cooperate with a psychologist-vocational consultant, etc.
The greatest problems often arise due to a lack of readiness for effective cooperation, which presupposes an active position of the client and a certain level of responsibility for decisions made.
With an unformed willingness to cooperate, the client often expects initiative on the part of the psychologist (for example, he waits to be “impressed”), and also seeks to shift responsibility for his choices to the psychologist, acting on the principle, “since you (the psychologist) are a specialist, then You must make decisions for me” (in paid counseling this principle is somewhat modified: “since I paid you money, then you must solve my problems”)... At the same time, often when a psychologist even tries to activate the client, he resists and often gets offended. Here it is necessary to remember that for full cooperation between a psychologist and a client, the client himself must still have a certain psychological culture (at least an understanding of what a psychologist can help with and what he cannot). This is formed on the basis of psychological education, independent acquaintance with the basics of psychology - this is what is called “formation of a competent client or customer,” but such a “competent client” is extremely rare.
Therefore, in reality, a psychologist often has to refuse full interaction with a client and often instead solve his important life problems... If we take into account the external reality of the client (his social status, the financial capabilities of him and his family, the situation on the labor market in his city or region, etc. ), then many problems arise here too. For example, the client himself highly evaluates the possibilities of his situation, but the psychologist sees that his external situation is not very favorable (problems with housing, no friends who could help with career issues, etc.). It is also possible, on the contrary, when the client too underestimates the possibilities of his situation. Special problems arise in this case when the client, due to his previous upbringing, has formed a dependent position (when everyone is “owed” something) and he is not able to use even the opportunities that he has.
Since the psychologist and the client himself have contradictions (inconsistencies) in their assessments of the real situation at a given moment, which cannot always be overcome painlessly, the psychologist often has to either follow the client’s lead (and then this, naturally, reduces the quality of the advisory assistance), or actively convince the client (and then the consultation becomes manipulative), or, outwardly agreeing with the client’s assessments, quietly lead him to other assessments (this is the same manipulation, only more sophisticated).
For more complete work, when the client’s opinions gradually change during joint reflections with the psychologist, significant time is needed, which the consultant often does not have at his disposal (especially in paid consultations). Hence, the implementation of manipulative counseling strategies becomes inevitable, with the exception of those rare cases when it is possible to organize work in a full-fledged dialogue mode. And here it should be recognized that such forced implementation of manipulative strategies still improves the client’s situation (solves some of his problems), but all this is very far from the ideal of full-fledged professional consultation, when the client, with the help of a psychologist, learns to independently and consciously solve his life issues.
If we talk about transforming and improving reality, then everything is not so simple here either. Improving the client's inner reality involves identifying meaningful, achievable, and optimistic goals to strive for. But the reality is that many clients usually highlight “high earnings” as such goals.
and “prestige” that a chosen profession or a profitable place of work can give. At the same time, it is forgotten that there are more interesting (sublime) goals of professional and personal self-determination. Often, during consultations, these (lofty) goals are somehow even spoken out, but against the backdrop of these beautiful conversations, the choices are made very pragmatic.
Even if we discard moral assessments of such “reality,” we must agree that this is the majority of clients and their “real” intentions must be respected. Even if the professional consultant psychologist himself strives for other goals in his life, this does not mean that he should orient all his clients towards a higher level of self-determination. Suffice it to recall A. Maslow, who identified the highest level of personal development - the level of self-actualization, but showed in his research that only the most outstanding people(which is about 1% of all people).
Even more problems arise with changes in external realities. Some realities can be changed, for example, making new friends, changing your place of residence, taking some career steps (getting a new education, applying for a new job, etc.). But there are realities that depend little on a particular person, for example, the specific socio-economic and spiritual situation in the country, which largely determines the opportunities for realizing career plans.
Here the consultant can offer, firstly, to try to take a fresh look at this reality (highlight new opportunities for a successful career), and, secondly, invite the client to prepare himself for effective actions in the face of a possible change in this situation in the near future (moreover, both negative changes and positive changes). Unfortunately, not only many clients, but also professional psychologists themselves are not ready for such mental experimentation (with the active participation of “social imagination” or even “social fantasy”)... And this is also a reality that should be taken into account, and which limits the possibilities professional consulting.
In this regard, two other important principles for organizing professional consulting work can be mentioned. Firstly, this is the principle of responsibility of a professional consultant. If you provoke thoughts about the transformation of society, then there is a danger of such an extreme as extremism, when you want to change everything for the better by revolutionary means. Therefore, it is important here to learn to think about options for improving reality that are less painful for most people (even for those who are very confused in this life and have already done a lot of bad things...).
