Career Counseling and Hollands Models

CAREER COUNSELLING MODELS- A STUDY OF HOLLAND'S THEORY Holland's approach to career development The greatest contribution Holland made and his most popular work has to do with his theory (Holland, 1959, 1966b, 1973, 1985, 1997c) of work environments and vocational personalities. The idea that most people have close resemblance with a combination of six different personality types is the theory's core foundation. The personalities are Investigative, Realistic, Artistic, Social, Conventional, Enterprising (commonly known with the acronym RIASEC).

Each of these personality types is characterized by a collection on interests, beliefs, preferred activities, abilities, characteristics, and values. A Holland system (usually the first three RIASEC types the person has more resemblance for) can be produced based on analyses, though Holland (1997c) made the recommendation of making use of the class ordering of the six different types to make a description of the individuals.

In the same way, job environments can be grouped based on how they resemble a particular combination of the types of RIASEC, and the Holland systems are mostly utilized to illustrate them well (Nauta, 2010). Person-in-environment Four conventional social work practice theories uses different approaches to the individual and lays varied emphases on the individual, his environment, and the relationship between the two.

These theories include concepts of ego psychology, psychoanalytic theory, radical theories, and constructivist theory that stand for a wide range of hypothetical traditions and that have difficulties with the integration of how a person is balanced in his environment point-of-view (Cornell, 2006).

Psychoanalytic theory: According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of individuality, the overall human behavior is the outcome of how the three parts that constitutes the mind interact, and lays much emphasis on the important role of involuntary psychological disagreements in shaping behavior and personality (Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality, n.d.). Ego Psychology Theory: Subsequent to Freud's era, several famous psychoanalytic theorists elaborated on the ego functionalist version ascribed to Freud.

Much effort were put into the theorization of various functions of the ego and how best to impair them in psychopathology. They focused on how to strengthen their ego to make it more suitable for coping with all the pressures from the super-ego, id, and society generally. The major task of the ego was conventionally believed to be reality-testing, judgment, affect tolerance, defense, impulse-control, and synthetic performance (Ego Psychology, n.d). Constructivist theory: Constructivism is simply a theory about the way people learn.

Integrated on development psychologists' works, constructivism argues that people create meaning based on their interpretive connections with the practices in their community settings. It assumes that previous experiences and knowledge play very important role in knowledge and lay the foundation for succeeding actions. It directs the scholars attention to the why of the study and paves way for intellectual development and critical thinking (What is Constructivism?, n.d.). Radical Theory: Radical theory portrays the Marxist ideologies and lays much emphasis on class conflict, politics, ideological hegemony, and socialism (Thompson, 1992).

It exposes structural injustices, that exist in capitalist societies and the roles played by beliefs systems and culture in the perpetuation of inequality. Radical theory has the ability to dehumanize the person sometimes by focusing solely on all sociopolitical determinants with no acknowledgement of the roles personal choices and actions play (Cornell, 2006).

Similarities Going by the ever-increasing need to assess vocational interests in different traditional settings, there is an increased need to carry out more investigative works as a way of examining the cross-cultural soundness of Holland's assumption and the different instruments of interest assessment formed. Similar to the vocational interest types classification, Holland (1985,1997) suggested that it is possible to arrange vocational environments into related typologies.

In the development process and career choice, people seek for environments that would let them exercise both their abilities and skills, as well as expressing their values and attitudes. In all vocational environments, there is a propensity to profile its composition to give its characteristics the resemblance of the principal individuals in there, and people who are not similar to the principal types have the tendency to feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Holland uses the idea of congruence as an indication of the interaction between a person and the environment.

The great similarity that exist between the personality of an individual, the individual's types of interest and the principal work environmental forms (which shows, his level of congruence), may result in instability, and vocational dissatisfaction. There is a great similarity between the idea of a relation between the person and the environment as contained in Holland's theory and the Theory of Work Adjustment-TWA correspondence concept (Esbroeck & Athansou, 2008).

It was Holland's belief that individuals sought environments that gave them room to express their values and attitudes and the possibility of understanding a behavior through the examination of how the individual interacts with their environments. According to the theory, vocational interests were comparatively stable. The theory of congruence (Match between person and environment) was fundamental to the theories of Holland and he believed it was easy for people to find achievement and vocational satisfaction in professional environments that matched their personalities.

Werner (1974), examined students studying in vocational training centers and discovered that though students in congruence environments succeeded better than students in no congruence environments, congruence seemed to be more related to fulfillment for men and not for women (Hosking, 1996). Results bared a strong numerical relationship with the initial canonical root, which indicates that both Vocational Identity and professional decision-making appear to have a strong relationship with the Achieved Identity Status. These discoveries lend more support to the hypothetical connection between career development process and ego identity.

In considerations to the limitations of the study, there are provisions for implications for practice and theory as well as the recommendations for future studies (LANCASTER, 2006). Applying Holland's Approach to Personal Life One of the most researched and applied theories of career development is the theory of vocational choice, established by John L. Holland. The belief that career choices are influenced by personality factors formed the basis of Holland's vocational theory.

According to this theory, people project their personal views and what is obtainable in their work environments onto their professional titles, which influence their career choices that gratify their favorite individual beliefs and orientations. The theory integrates a number of constructs ranging from personality psychology, social psychology, and vocational behavior, including social stereotyping and self-perception (Shahnasarian, n.d.). The RIASEC individuality and environmental types and how they relate to each other makes provision for the foundation of a number of testable theories.

Most importantly, according to Holland (1997c), people look for and get involved in work environments that give them the permission to exercise their abilities and skills, express their values and attitudes, and take on agreeable roles and problems (p.4). Correspondingly, I had to leave my first job because working in a professional environment that gave me little chance to showcase my skills properly did me very little good, that was when I started conceptualizing what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.

Consequently, the degree of congruence between a person's type of personality and the type of.