The Case of E
E engages in a range of actions. Not only is she a sophomore at the
university, she has had summer jobs, stays in touch with friends,
watches TV, goes to concerts, and comes to counseling. Many other
activities are implied. For example, she is likely to be involved in a
number of activities with her family that are not one-time events.
Sequences of goal-directed actions that have meaning for E and for
her counselor are described. However, it is too early to say what
meaning they have; inasmuch as E described these actions, they
have meaning for her.
Because these actions are more than one-time events, they can
be described as projects. In other words, they contribute to longer-
term broad goals that E may have. They are also constructed as she
engages in the actions themselves. Actions and projects are guided
by goals, and goals emerge from actions and projects. For the pur-
poses of explicating our position in this chapter, we tentatively
name three projects that these actions may be a part of; however,
naming projects has to be integral to the counseling process and
depends on E’s participation in it (as in the case of K that follows).
E is involved in a number of tasks pertinent to academic achieve-
ment, attending university being a major one. These tasks come to-
gether for her at the level of goals, as she frames a narrative around
these academic tasks. It is from this narrative that an understanding
of the relevant projects to which her particular actions contribute will
be clarified. But we can initially identify an educational project.
E also seems quite interested in her relationships with her fam-
ily. One would suspect that there is a family relational project of
considerable importance; moreover, this family project may be re-
lated to her concerns about occupation. For example, she seems to
reflect her parents’ own occupational preferences. She is taking
courses that would lead to a career in law (like her parents); law is
an occupational daydream, and she admires women lawyers and
would like to pattern her life after them. One may speculate that
she may feel overembedded in the family project and unsatisfied
238 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT