A constructivist look at life roles

Career Development Quarterly, Dec, 2005 by Pamelia E. Brott

The author reviews the literature related to life roles and describes a variety of techniques that can be used from a constructivist career counseling perspective. Seven counseling techniques are included: life space map, life line, life-space genogram, life roles circles, life roles assessment, life role analysis, and goal map. Framed from the storied approach (P. E. Brott, 2001), constructivist applications to co-construct, de-construct, and construct the client's life story are presented. Applications for use with diverse populations are suggested.

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Most career counselors will credit Donald Super with their understanding of life roles. However, other theorists include aspects of life roles in their approach to counseling, such as Adler's lifestyle (Shulman, 1973; Shulman & Mosak, 1988) and life tasks (Mosak & Dreikurs, 1967); Glasser's (2000) genetically encoded needs; and the existential philosophy dealing with identity, relationships, and the search for meaning (May & Yalom, 1995). Theories of development also reflect the concept of life roles when addressing identity (e.g., Erikson, 1963) and developmental tasks (Havighurst, 1972). In the field of career counseling, a number of approaches have taken career counseling beyond job placement. Examples of these approaches include that of Gysbers and Moore (1973), who conceptualize life career development as the interaction and integration of the roles, settings, and events in a person's life. Brown (1996) presents a values-based, holistic model of decision making. Hansen's (1997) Integrative Life Planning model (ILP) integrates life roles into the career decision-making process. Furthermore, life roles are a focus of postmodern approaches to career counseling, such as those of Blustein (1997), Brott (2001, 2004), Peavy (1997), and Savickas (1993).

The postmodern, or constructivist, counseling process is based on the client's subjective narrative or life story, with the counselor as a collaborative partner both in the client's personal awareness of past and present chapters and in the client's action steps in building a preferred way of being in future chapters (Brott, 2001; Bujold, 2004). The constructivist approach reaches beyond the client's worker role and occupational decision making. Clients are active participants in becoming aware of and exploring the variety of life roles (e.g., worker, family, relationships, learner) and their own sources of beliefs (e.g., experiences, media, family). Acknowledging the synergy among the life roles and the belief system of the client marks a refreshing direction for career counseling. It is more than "test them and tell them" and more than "true reasoning" for finding the fit between person and occupation.

Given the variety of counseling perspectives that include aspects of life roles and the emphasis in career development on life roles, this is certainly an important issue for counseling in general and career counseling in particular. In fact, a recent issue of the Journal of Vocational Behavior (Young & Collin, 2004) was devoted to constructivism. The purpose of this article as a constructivist look at life roles is twofold. The first purpose is to provide a review of the theoretical models that contribute to the counseling profession's focus on life roles. The second purpose is to present seven counseling techniques that can be incorporated into the career counseling process with a focus on life roles from a constructivist career counseling perspective. The career counseling techniques are life space map, life line, life-space genogram, life roles circles, life roles assessment, life role analysis, and goal map.

Theoretical Basis for Life Roles

The Adlerian lifestyle assessment (Shulman & Mosak, 1988) explores the client's subjective frame of reference from three perspectives: (a) the client's basic orientation to life, (b) the client's social interest that begins in childhood and involves finding a place in society and acquiring a sense of belonging and of contributing, and (c) the client as understood from a social context. Mosak (as cited in Corey, 2001) presented five life tasks that include relating to others, making a contribution, achieving intimacy, getting along with oneself, and developing one's spiritual dimension. These can be related to the respective life roles of relationships, work, family, self, and spirituality. Reality therapy, based on choice theory, poses that human beings are born with the genetically encoded needs of survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun (Glasser, 2000). The client's quality world is explored to determine how he or she meets these needs. These needs are reflected in various life roles, such as work, relationships, and leisure. The existential philosophy of significance in life includes striving for identity and relationship to others as well as one's search for meaning (May & Yalom, 1995). Meaningfulness is found in engaging in life through creating, loving, working, and building. These may be seen as the life roles of family, relationships, work, and actualization.