Counsellors' personal experience and appraisal of My Career Chapter

Abstract

This study investigated a qualitative career assessment and counselling procedure that was founded upon a constructivist, narrative approach to career counselling, My Career Chapter: A Dialogical Autobiography. Counsellors were trained in the use of the procedure and then applied it to themselves in an intensive workshop format. Intepretative phenomenological analysis was used for the research methodology. Counsellors were then interviewed to determine (a) their personal experience of My Career Chapter and (b) their appraisal of its alignment with a set of recommendations for the design and use of qualitative assessment procedures. Four superordinate clusters were derived from the data and these included My Career Chapter’s relationship to theory, its administrative process, the counselling process, and the counselling relationship. The results indicated that My Career Chapter satisfied the recommendations for qualitative procedures. Possible amendments to the procedure were discussed.