ABSTRACT
This chapter explores several case examples to outline a psychotherapeutic approach to career development. This approach is a hybrid of psychotherapy, on one hand, and vocational counseling and coaching, on the other. Treatment proceeds in typical psychotherapeutic fashion by analyzing the conflicts and defenses that have an inhibitory effect on the personality. The psychotherapeutic dimension of the approach, along with the coaching and counseling dimension, has a synergistic effect. Psychotherapeutic engagement in career development requires the therapist to balance the patient’s perspective on the organization with what he knows about the dynamics of organizational life. Sensitivity to changes in style within the organization can be used by the therapist to help alert the patient to opportunities to expand and redefine his role in conjunction with ongoing personality change made in psychotherapy. In select cases, then, individual therapy can affect the overall functioning of the organization and even contribute to changes in the organizational culture.
