ABSTRACT
To be self-aware requires a conscious understanding of one’s interests, abilities, values, motivations and thought processes. We have a key role in bringing what is unconscious into the light, challenging personal constructs that may be limiting and inaccurate, and enabling the client to believe in their potential.
In this chapter, we explore how traditional matching, if unmediated, can serve to reinforce a narrow self-concept, and how more creative methods can support the process of exploring and expanding the client’s self-awareness. These methods include reflecting on Schein’s (2013) career anchors and dialogical techniques using archetypes and subpersonalities.
We also consider how clients with an overly fixed mindset may limit themselves, and how this can be challenged.
