A Study of Clinical Change in Individual Career Counseling

Abstract

This study examined the clinical significance of career counseling effects. Participants were 111 university students (83% women) who participated in individual career counseling sessions at their university. All participants completed the French version of the Outcome Questionnaire–30.2 (OQ‐30.2; Lambert, Finch, Okiishi, & Burlingame, 2005) immediately before the 1st session (pretest) and at the beginning of the last session (posttest). The OQ‐30.2 assesses 3 client life domains: subjective discomfort, problems in interpersonal relationships, and problems in social role satisfaction. Using Jacobson and Truax’s (1991) statistical approach to assessing clinical change, the authors compared clients’ pretest OQ‐30.2 scores with their posttest scores. Among clients with a “dysfunctional” score (n = 59) at the study’s inception, 34% recovered and 14% improved, whereas 41% of clients with functional scores (n = 52) at the study’s inception improved. The results suggest that individual career counseling can make a difference in the lives of many clients; they also highlight the importance of further outcome research that accounts for possible variability in clients’ responses to career counseling.

Eliciting reconceptualization innovative moments to foster change in Career Construction Counseling

“…These results reinforce the empirical support for CCC effectiveness in fostering change in vocational dimensions (Barclay & Stoltz, 2016; Cardoso & Sales, 2019; Cardoso et al., 2016, 2017; Di Fabio & Maree, 2011; Obi, 2015). Moreover, CCT also showed a decrease in the distress of the participants, with this finding also consistent with other studies (Leuty et al., 2015; Milot‐Lapointe et al., 2019), and likely explained by the emergence of positive feelings (e.g., unity, personal agency, hope) resulting from both the “rewriting” of narrative identity and participants’ projection into ambitioned career roles. This explanation is supported by theory describing how narrative identity fosters the sense of unity and personal agency and research findings revealing the impact of narrative self‐organization on mental health and psychological, subjective well‐being (Adler, 2012; Adler et al., 2013; Lilgendahl & McAdams, 2011; Steiner et al., 2019).…”

What Does Heterosexuality Mean? Same-Sex Attraction, Behaviors, and Discomfort Among Self-identified Heterosexual Young Adults from Spain

“…Perceived discomfort is a concrete aspect of negative emotional impacts, which is relevant and widely used in the clinical context (Kalfon et al, 2010 ; Lin et al, 2010 ; Milot-Lapointe et al, 2019 ). For this reason, in this part, the related instrument evaluated the participants’ perception of discomfort in each same-sex experience and with their sexual orientation.…”

Narrative potential and career counseling under quantity, quality, and mixed interventions: An emphasis on university students

“…see Langher et al, 2018). Additionally, placing emphasis on designing and assessing career interventions for university students may profit them not only with respect to career-related concerns but also on personal issues as well-at least in an indirect way (Milot-Lapointe et al, 2019). Spokane and Nguen (2016) suggest refinement of the traditional process paradigm, claiming for complementarity between different types of intervention and assessment methodologies (quantitative and qualitative) in view of the substantial need for services and the limits on available resources.…”