In the vision of CIP, career-related problem solving includes common traits such as:
- problems can be defined in terms of the distance between what it is and what
is desired, that is reality and aspirations; - career-related problems are complex and involve numerous emotional
aspects, which put some pressure on the person, alongside with the influence
of family, society, economic and cultural environment, etc.; - career-related problem solving goes through the stage of multiple options,
hesitations, oscillations between relatively equivalent alternatives; - indecision around career-related choices is caused by the advantages and
disadvantages that come with every option, therefore narrowing the range of
alternatives is felt as a decrease in the freedom of choice, as choosing the
“lesser evil”, and in the end the solution found – which is a combination of
successive options – does not appear highly successful and satisfactory; - a final decision regarding one’s career leads to another set of problems –
unknown beforehand – and that will require further solving.
Method presentation
The CIP method applied to career counselling is one of continual learning, in the sense
that the evaluation functions were integrated with the intervention functions in the very
process of counselling; this model is also associated with the developments of cognitive
theories (which state that the cognitive dysfunctions have a decisive impact on generating
maladaptive behaviours and emotions). Processes put in place by the counsellor are of
cognitive restructuring, cooperation, attention to emotions, etc., all oriented towards
replacing cognitive dysfunctions and turning behaviours and emotions into positive and
functional ones.
To sum up, this new approach starts from the following hypotheses:
- career choice is based on our way of thinking and feeling;
- making career-related choices is an activity of the problem solving type;
- problem solving abilities are based on the information one holds and how one
operates with them; - career-oriented decision-making is based on memory functions;
- career-related decisions involve motivation;