ABSTRACT
Career theory has always guided career counselling. It provides a conceptual framework for the career choice process from its initial stages to the developmental adjustments that individuals need to make throughout life. Over the last century this conceptual framework has modified as career theory has reflected macro changes in the economic, social and political spheres. These changes have impacted on the nature and role of work in individuals’ lives, thus challenging earlier conceptual understandings of career behaviour. The last century has seen career theory and counselling move from a dominant trait-factor approach to what was considered a radical new psychologicallybased theory of career development by mid-century. While this reflects a movement from a more static to a more dynamic, lifelong developmental approach, the underlying philosophical position of logical positivism has remained entrenched in most career theory and counselling. Core assumptions of logical positivism are that individual behaviour is observable, measurable and linear, that individuals can be studied separately from their environments and, consequently, that the contexts within which individuals live and work are of less importance than their actions.
