1. The ‘Subjective’ Career

2. Beyond positivism: the emergence of the ‘Subjective Career’
Over recent years considerable attention has been given to re-defining the contours of ‘career’.
Influences: postmodernism (Payne & Edwards, 1996; Savickas, 1993) and constructivism (Chen, 1997; Collin, 1996; Peavy, 1993).
Theorists are increasingly defining ‘career’ in provisional and localised terms.
Terms such as ‘the subjective career’ or ‘the fragmented career’ have become popular precisely because they serve to reflect the uncertainties that many individuals experience in the post-bureaucratic age (Arnold & Jackson, 1997).

3. Savickas (1994) has identified two possible directions
for career theory:
The convergence of extant theories leading to a unified science of vocational psychology. Savickas cited the work of Super (1992) as an exemplar of this ‘modernist position’ (Savickas, 1994, p.19).
A post-modern direction for career theory. This includes the narrative tradition exemplified by Cochran’s (1990a, 1990b, 1997) dramaturgical approach, and Savickas’ (1989, 1995a, 1995b) own work on life-themes.

4. The Subjective’ Career Part One:
Cochran’s
‘Dramaturgical
Phenomenology’

5. Cochran’s (1990a, 1990b) dramaturgical approach to career research is founded upon narrative:
‘The relevance of narrative to career research is direct. Narrative (story or drama) is a form, a coherent pattern through time that is capable of representing career. To describe a person’s career is to tell a story.’ (Cochran, 1990b, p.71)
synthetic

6. According to Cochran (ibid), our experience of living in the world is structured by narrative: we not only live in a narrative, but also represent, explain, and comprehend our experiences through narrative. From this standpoint, Cochran has observed that:
‘Suitable employment is not only about matching, but also about the proper vehicle through which a certain character can be enacted in a certain kind of drama.’ (Cochran, 1997, p.viii)

7. Cochran’s central concern is not with matching persons to occupations
Cochran’s central concern is not with matching persons to occupations. Rather, he is concerned with what he calls emplotment. This is defined as:
‘how a person can be cast as the main character in a career narrative that is meaningful, productive, and fulfilling.’ (Cochran, ibid, p.ix)

8. In using narrative as a paradigm for researching career, Cochran (1990a) assumed that ‘any rounded experience takes the form of a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end’ (p.14).
Thus, according to Cochran, story provides a structure within which experiences of career can be described and analysed .

9. Within this basic story structure, Cochran proposed a
four-phase cycle:
‘incompletion’ - something happens which directs a person toward completion
‘positioning’ - this is concerned with preparing for action;
3. ‘positing’ - whereby action is taken leading to ‘both a practical achievement and a symbolic attainment’
4. ‘completion’ - here either positive or negative closure is brought to the sense of incompletion aroused at the beginning of the story

10. Thus, for Cochran the coherence and structure of a story relies on an opposition between a beginning, which emerges from a sense of ‘incompleteness’, and an end, which results in ‘closure’.
Although Cochran acknowledged that each beginning has many possible opposites, nonetheless he viewed the line of opposition as fundamental to the realisation of a story

11. Cochran suggested that any experience not directly related to this line of movement becomes irrelevant to the story.
Cochran elaborated his story structure by suggesting that an opposition not only establishes the relevance and significance of the ‘ingredients’ of a story, it also dramatically defines a given situation.

12. According to Cochran, a story is embedded in both an actual and symbolic dramatic context. The former is located in the objective world, the latter in the subjective experience of the person.
Cochran extended this dramatic structure by introducing the notion of roles. According to Cochran ‘any drama involves many different roles and each involves a story’ (ibid, p.49).

13. Cochran suggested that a dramatic role is relatively stable and this stability is founded upon the repetition of experience.
He suggested that persons are inclined towards experiencing repetition in order to develop a sense of constancy, which in turn provides the basis for the anticipation of future events.

14. According to Cochran, from a dramaturgical perspective, the repetition of experience has a particular function:
‘as a pattern of experience is repeated in different circumstances, more and more of life is bound into a certain kind of drama.
It does not make sense any longer to just focus upon a concrete experience itself, but rather on experience as an instance of a pattern.
Concrete experiences transform into a dramatic unit, an abstract or symbolic form that encompasses experience.’ (1990a, p.47)

15. Cochran extended his notion of role by suggesting that a dramatic role becomes a metaphor for action - for acting in the world, and acting on the world.
Cochran also suggested that such action would be purposeful and goal-directed, given the actor’s desire to move dramatically from a state of ‘incompletion’ to one of ‘completion’.

16. According to Cochran, goal-directed action is facilitated by the availability of models.
He emphasised that models might be singular, plural, or indeed partial, and he suggested that:
‘a person seems to search in particular for a model that not only exemplifies a desired state but one whom the person identifies with as similar to oneself
The model seems particularly effective if it models a movement from one’s current state to a desirable end state’ (1990a, p.63).

17. Thus, within Cochran’s formulation, a model represents an ‘ideal to strive toward’ (ibid, p.58).
It personifies the movement towards completion within a drama, and, as such, functions as a guiding metaphor for action.
Cochran (1997) also emphasised that a model need not be an actual person:
‘it might be a fictional character, an historical figure, a cartoon character, or even an animal.’ (Cochran, 1997, p.78)

18. Finally, Cochran’s notion of a dramatic role has a
dual function:
It provides a domain for selfhood, wherein the subjective reality of career is experienced.
Given that a dramatic role is constructed through the process of modelling, it also locates a person within the objective reality of social drama.

19. From theory to practice…….
Cochran (1997) has identified a range of
techniques founded upon narrative.
Some examples (more detail in transcript):
Life-lines
Role- Models
Life-Chapters

20. The Subjective’ Career Part Two: Savickas’ Life-Themes approach

21. Savickas has demonstrated a continuing concern with the subjective meaning that individuals assign to interests, decision-making, and career goals.
For example, in relation to interests, Savickas was concerned with relating:
‘the objective view of measured interests portrayed on inventory profiles with the subjective view of manifest interests revealed in the stories told by clients.’ (Savickas, 1995a, p.189)

22. Savickas’ reference to story-telling reveals the narrative roots of his life-themes approach.
In essence, a life-theme is elicited in the form of a story.
Savickas identified two types of story that relate to a life theme, the first of which reveals the central life concern, or ‘preoccupation’ of the individual.
The second type of story reveals the ‘plot’ - this is what the individual plans or intends to do about their preoccupation.

23. Savickas then proposed that a connection could be made between these two stories to provide a ‘thread of continuity that is the life theme’ (1995b, p.367).
Savickas developed this notion of a life-theme by locating the felt problem within the subjective experience of the person (a ‘preoccupation’) and the potential solution to the problem in the objective world (an ‘occupation’).

24. Savickas expressed this set of relations as follows:
‘People organize their lives around a problem that preoccupies them and a solution that occupies them.’ (Savickas, 1995a, p.195)
According to Savickas (1995a), solutions to a preoccupying problem can be objectified and portrayed in the form of role models

25. Savickas defined his view of ‘role models’ in the following terms:
‘Role models may be viewed as standard stories told by members of a culture to portray paths toward self-fulfilment offered within that society.
These stories, which personify developmental pathways, are crystallized and symbolized in the shorthand of role models.
The dramatic actions of the heroine or hero depict specific interests and attitudes as a means of actively mastering what was at first passively suffered’ (Savickas, 1995a, pp )

26. Savickas added to this set of relations the function of interests, which he viewed as ‘a bridge that connects an individual to a social role’ (Savickas, ibid, p.191).
In this sense, interests provide a line of movement between a problem and its solution.
Savickas suggested that interests portray the intentions of a person as they enact their life theme (Savickas, 1989, 1995a).

27. According to Savickas, a person’s goals (what they intend) and means (how they propose to achieve their goals/intentions) reveal their uniqueness.
In contrast, interest inventories address the degree to which a person is ‘similar to workers in different occupations’.
As such, Savickas suggested that:
‘Inventories measure how clients feel about occupations, not how they intend to use them to achieve their goals and become more effective and complete.’ (Savickas, ibid, p.294)

28. From theory to practice…….
Establishing a Life-theme:
Help the client to identify what preoccupies them – this can be achieved by identifying the interests of the client
2. Help the client to identify the ways in which their interests occupy their time
3. Help the client to identify the presence and influence of role models as a means of pursuing their interests

29. For example….
Interests: ‘I’m interested in people’
Preoccupation: ‘I want to make a difference to
people’s lives’
Occupation: ‘I’m raising funds for our World
Challenge project’
Role Models: ‘My geography teacher told us
stories about her VSO’

30. Finally….. a summary of the key characteristics
of a narrative approach to career:
There are many narratives/ stories to be told
from a life history
2. Narratives provide a means of structuring our
various experiences of and actions in the
world
3. Narratives can provide the basis for goal-directed
action