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8              Exercises relating to Psychology/Models of Guidance

Differences between practitioners and clients, their implications and ways of dealing with them.

1.  It is very likely that at least some of the time you will be working with clients who are older or younger than yourself.   Remembering the distinction between the concepts of biological life, working life, and career (people may have more than one career), how might your situation be different from those you meet?

2.  What sort of effects would such differences have on possible progressions for your clients?

3.   How might such differences affect your working relationship with clients?

Clients' background and cultural context.

4.  Case study:  you are interviewing a woman, 41 years of age, who has been outside of the labour market for child care reasons for the last 5 years.   In her twenties, she had worked as a secretary.  She took a degree with the Open University and then attended a teacher training course, going on to working as a primary school teacher until she stopped work to have children.   She is now ready to go back to work but is not sure if teaching children is really for her.  She feels anxious when thinking about returning to the classroom.

          (a)  Developmentally, how would you describe your client's situation?   (b) Are there other factors, positive or negative, which are likely to affect her situation?  (c) What variables may  be useful to know about before taking any action (within careers or general counselling)? 

5. Your client, aged 20, has recently come from a state within the former Yugoslavia.   She has no formal qualifications (from Britain or elsewhere), although her standard of spoken and written English is very good.   She has declared an interest in becoming a lawyer, perhaps also combining this with European studies or languages.    What do you think may be the relevant issues here? 

Potential and/or real impact of own attitudes, values and behaviour on work with clients.

6.  Are there issues in your own life which you reminded about in the recent reading materials?   Do you feel that you are able to decide your own course in life, or are you mainly driven by circumstances?  How about your clients?  How might this translate into the way you approach work with clients?  

Please note that these questions do not have a ‘right and wrong’ answer.  They are designed to stimulate thought about how you practise. 

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