ABSTRACT
Several former ACA presidents (e.g., Sam Gladding and Mark Pope) wisely posit that counseling is the only mental health profession with proficiency in the area of career counseling. In fact, the beginning of the guidance movement has often been associated with the work of Frank Parsons who started the Boston
Vocation Bureau on January 13, 1908 just nine months prior to his death. He was a Cornell graduate who later became Boston’s chief law clerk and then the Dean of the Liberal Arts College at Glen Ellyn, Illinois. His landmark work, Choosing a Vocation, was published posthumously, thus it is doubtful that he ever knew the true impact he had on the field. Parsons served as the Bureau’s director as well as a vocational counselor. The Bureau was set up at the Civic Service House though Parsons also had office hours in branch offices at the YMCA, the Economic Club, and the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union. This explains why historians insist that the guidance movement in the United States began with vocational guidance. John M. Brewer, a director of the Bureau during World War I and the author of the 1942 work History of Vocational Guidance, speculated that as a bachelor Parsons could have been drawn to the Civic Service House in search of friendship. How do neophyte counselors really feel about conducting career counseling? In a nutshell: not that great! Most of the literature suggests that grad students and beginning counselors sport a negative attitude toward the career counseling and see the work of performing personal counseling as having more prestige. Interestingly enough, career counseling trailblazer John O. Crites feels that the need for career counseling exceeds the need for therapy. Moreover, according to Crites, career counseling (which he feels is more difficult than performing psychotherapy) can be therapeutic since a positive correlation between career counseling and personal adjustment is evident. Although not all counselors would agree with Crites’ assertions, it seems safe to say that in reality, the two disciplines overlap. (d)
502. One trend is that women are moving into more careers that in the past were populated by males. Women workers are often impacted by the “glass ceiling phenomenon.” Assuming that a counselor’s behavior is influenced by the phenomenon, which statement would he most likely make when conducting a career counseling session with a female client who wants to advance to a higher position?
