Career Thinking Session: Overcoming Challenges & Working Through Limiting Assumptions

1. The Career Thinking Session: overcoming challenges and working through limiting assumptions with clients Dr Barbara Bassot Svendborg 7-8th May 2014

2. Overview • Background to the study • The model for the Career Thinking Session (CTS) • Theoretical aspects • The pilot project in brief • Further research • The findings • Implications for practice

3. Background • Originally part of the NICE project (University Network for Innovation in Guidance and Counselling in Europe) • Focus on innovative new approaches • Gave an opportunity to do some research into something new

4. Why a reflective approach? • We are all called to be reflective practitioners • My own particular specialism • A key theme in reflective practice is being open to challenging our own assumptions about our practice • Guidance and counselling is all about helping people to think about their future

5. Creating a space for reflection in career guidance practice – why? • Good investment of time – avoids ‘quick fix’ solutions • On-going development of practice in a changing world • Prevents stagnation • Making practice creative • Awareness of attitudes and values in decision making • Deeper examination of issues – to avoid assumptions • Systematic enquiry to improve and deepen understanding of practice Reid & Bassot (2011) Reflection: A Constructive Space for Career Development in McMahon, M. & Watson, M. Career Counseling and Constructivism, New York: Nova Science

6. Residing in silence and wonder: career counselling from the perspective of ‘being’. A purposefully reflective approach avoids rushing to solutions that close down the opportunity for more meaningful engagement. Hansen & Amundson argue for ‘felt presence’. As an example of a deeply reflexive approach to career counselling that is truly centred on the ‘client’, they write about ‘stillness, openness and undoing’. Hansen, F.T. & Amundson, N. (2009) Residing in silence and wonder: career counselling from the perspective ‘being’. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 9, 1, 31-43 In the study: I wanted to experiment with an approach that moved away from short term work for short term solutions. I aimed to explore the potential for an approach which stayed with purposeful reflection, slowing the process down in order to construct a ‘safe transitional’ space (Winnicott, 1971) for meaningful career thinking.

7. The Career Thinking Session (CTS) Model • Origins in the work of Nancy Kline (1999) • Pioneered the theory and process of the Thinking Environment • Organisational development and coaching • Aims: to increase the quality of thinking through listening, and to challenge limiting assumptions (barriers to progression)

8. 6 Steps in the process (Kline, 1999) • Step 1 ‘What do you want to think about?’ • Step 2 ‘What do you want to achieve from the rest of the session?’ • Step 3 ‘What are you assuming is stopping you from achieving your goal? • Step 4 ‘If you knew that ... What ideas would you have towards your goal?’ Finding the positive opposites • Step 5 Writing down the Incisive Question then posing it a number of times (the positive opposites to the bedrock assumption) • Step 6 What have we appreciated in one another? Appreciation keeps people thinking

9. Brookfield (1995) Paradigmatic Prescriptive Causal ‘Hunting assumptions’ Kline (1999) • Facts • Possible facts • Bedrock ‘Deconstruction and reconstruction’ (Savickas, 2011) which can lead to ‘perspective transformation’ (Mezirow, 1978; 1981)

10. Pilot study • ‘Is applying Kline’s thinking session model to career counselling useful?’ • A qualitative approach • One retrospective (notes taken) • Three Career Thinking Sessions • All with adults • The three sessions were recorded, transcribed and analysed

11. Insights and questions from the pilot project • Some similarities with well known 3 stage models (e.g. Egan) • But clear differences – no action planning and clear focus on limiting assumptions • Kline uses the word goal, but this didn’t seem useful – the model needs further development • I needed to ‘stay with the model’ to see if it would work – and I felt it did! • Would it work with younger clients?

12. My own limiting assumptions • That the model would not work well with young people • That there would be lots of awkward silences • That they would find the reflective space too difficult and uncomfortable • That they might just say “I don’t know” • That my research would fall “flat on its face” • That this really is a model to use with adults only

13. ‘Holly’ Step 1 • Disillusioned with her course at college – no longer interested in health and social care • Interested in events management • Wants to think about a wide range of options e.g. going back to school to take academic subjects, going to university, doing an apprenticeship.

14. Step 2

15. Step 3 - Two roads

16. Factors The road to nursing • The course is boring • Not enough challenge • Lack of motivation • Lack of a sense of achievement • Will I get the grades I need to go to university? The road to elsewhere (music, events management) • Doing something I enjoy • More interesting • More motivating • Fun • Exciting

17. The road to elsewhere – limiting assumptions Facts • I haven’t done anything creative before, I’ve always done Science • Being a year behind, then taking a gap year and being two years behind • Money – nursing courses are paid for, other courses you have to pay for yourself Possible Facts • There will always be people who are better than me • My parents are worried that I won’t get a job. Bedrock • I’m not talented enough

18. Taking a diversion – emerging patterns Looking back • What made her choose her current course and a future career in nursing? What else could she have done? She didn’t choose to be a doctor “because I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I was good enough. Teachers tried to persuade me to apply for Oxbridge, but I thought I couldn't do it.”

19. Step 4 - Positive opposites • “If I knew I could be a doctor, how would that make me feel? - Long silence • If I knew that I was talented enough, how would that change things for me?

20. Step 5 - The Incisive Question How can I use my talents? • I’ll finish my course • I’ll do what I want to do • I won’t give up on my ideas • I’ll be confident • In the short term I’ll look at changing course • In the medium term I’ll take a gap year • In the longer term I’ll apply for a route (university, jobs, higher apprenticeship) into something I enjoy more and that will challenge me (e.g. events management)

21. Appreciation “You kept asking me the same questions, so I really had to think about things. Each time you asked me the same question I had to think deeper and deeper as time went on. You made me think a lot – I really needed that.”

22. Implications for practice • Navigating barriers to innovation: time • Beware of your own limiting assumptions when trying something new • CTS does not focus on goals and action planning like other staged models, but on the client’s limiting assumptions • Challenging limiting assumptions is not easy: for practitioners and clients, requires a high level of trust • Resist the imperative to identify problems and find solutions: reflection can’t be rushed • The most difficult part (I think) is helping the client to articulate the IQ

23. Thank you! barbara.bassot@canterbury.ac.uk