When I think about the role of work in people’s lives, it all comes down to two factors: What gets you out of bed in the morning, and what keeps you awake at night? Conversely, this might be put as: What stops you going to work in the morning, and what lets you sleep as sound as a baby, satisfied in your day’s work? Philosophical these questions may be, but they are the core questions considered by workers themselves, and those who are meant to motivate them, such as human resources professionals, career counsellors, and psychotherapists. Continue reading “Work Conversations and Identity”
Tag: narrative
Metaphor Identification Research Opens a New Vista on Career and Work
Did you know that metaphor is more than a literary adornment? Metaphor is key to understanding the world, the meaning of life, and communicating with other people. Metaphorical language often goes unnoticed, yet we humans use metaphor in every day talk with one another, in what we read and write, and even in the way we gesture to say something.
For example, take the abstract concept time: “Time is money”, “Times are a changin”, “Times are tough”. Consider how often people use time in relation to a more concrete or physical experience, such as time in terms of space, distance, and movement: TIME AS AN OBJECT MOVING TOWARDS YOU. “The meeting was brought forward to Monday.” Continue reading “Metaphor Identification Research Opens a New Vista on Career and Work”
Writing and Telling a Career Story
Stories are universal. Cultures include stories; cultures are stories-incomplete stories, always evolving. Every person has a story; a person is a story-an incomplete story, always evolving. At their confluence, the stories of cultures manifest through individuals, and individuals express themselves through the stories of their cultures. As such, one is a story of the other, with each reflecting one another. Indeed, on this planet, there are seven billion stories and counting, incomplete and always evolving, as diverse as all the peoples on earth, yet, somehow humanely very similar to one another. How these many stories are told, heard, and created is very much the domain of counselling. Continue reading “Writing and Telling a Career Story”
4E-cognition: Exploring thought, feeling, & action in career behaviour
What is 4E-cognition?
In recent years a new way of looking at the notion of cognition has gained ground, often labelled as 4E-cognition (embodied, enacted, embedded, and extended cognition). The basic claim is that cognition cannot be reserved to individual processes inside the head (and body) only; rather cognition is seen as “a doing”; it is something people do in their active and explorative sense-making with the bio-social environment. Thus, an ecological turn is on its way within cognitive science that seeks to explore thought, feeling, and action as inter-related dimensions of an agent-environment system. ACCELL is now applying this new research paradigm to career development.
Continue reading “4E-cognition: Exploring thought, feeling, & action in career behaviour”
Narrative Career Counselling
Career counselling is a term that subsumes a variety of diverse activities. Here, the qualities and activities of narrative career counselling are highlighted.
Core Features of Narrative Career Counselling:
- emphasises subjectivity and meaning;
- faciliates self-reflection and elaboration of self-concepts toward an enhanced self-understanding that is subjectively and contextually truthful;
- is a collaborative process in which the client is supported while creating an open-ended personal story that holistically describes his or her life and career; and,
- produces a story which enables the client to make meaningfully informed career decisions and actions.
ACCELL Research Team 