Carl Rogers, the cuddly man, himself

I can't help thinking that Carl Rogers approach is absolutely essential and fundamental but, and its a big but, not sufficient for careers advisers.
I can't see that we can get very far at all without being congruent, having positive regard, and empathic understanding. Clients will never open up, trust us, and be in a place that we can truly help them without these being in place. I can see that the approach demands flexibility in what we do as well, in that it is person centred and doesn't allow us to impose our own structure and expectations on what takes place in an interview which to an extent has to be a good thing.

The problem though is that if the approach Carl Rogers advocates is sufficient then there is no need for professional career advisers. Anyone with these attitudes could act as a career adviser. Most people's mums would qualify in this category but I don't think they would necessarily offer good careers advice.

A session with Carl Roger may offer a warm happy feeling immediately after, but on reflection, other than perhaps deepening their own understanding of self, I don't think clients would necessarily believe that they had received the careers advice they hoped for, and if we were honest we would often know we hadn't done a good job either afterwards. Surely as professionals we actually have a duty to impart information and advice that the client isn't necessarily asking for, and this advice may not leave a warm happy feeling. Some of our advice may give clients food for thought, challenge their assumptions, and potentially put them back to the drawing board with their plans for the future. This might be unpleasant for them at the time, but ultimately in their best interests. Grant gave a brilliant quote about a friend having to be as soft as a dove and as wise as a serpent. I think our wisdom in this respect has to come very much from our professional expertise.

Carl Rogers approach seems to be very much about drawing people out of themselves and getting them to come up with the solutions. This maybe is the right approach to take when someone has suffered some kind of personal trauma, (which I think Carl Rogers' clients often had) but I just don't think its the best approach for careers advice - we have to pull our tool box out to help as appropriate, be that careers information, matching approach, or good old common sense.

Disabling Professions

I thought that Illich was spot on with some of his analysis and a million miles wide of the mark with the rest! His comments about the growth of the nanny state interfering with every aspect of our lives rang very true however some of what he said about the medical profession "ill become illnesses to be treated by doctors and people lost their will and ability to cope with indisoposition, or even discomfort" led me to wonder whether this man ever had a day's sickness in his life. How much "discomfort" would he endure before putting his total distrust of professionals aside. In this vein he goes on to talk about people's extensive visits to medical practioners. Prior to such availability people endured tremendous physical suffering and most lived to about the age of 40 if they were lucky.

I agreed with what he said about consumerism and the fact that people buy so much "stuff" they just don't need, and that doesn't satisfy them however I'm not sure this really does arise from professionals telling them what to buy, but rather quite simply from the fact that the majority of the population have extra cash to buy more than basic food, shelter and clothing.

Illich's comment about the control of antibiotics by professionals seems totally misguided - surely they are controlled for good reason otherwise we would be awash with even more super bugs resistant to antibiotics than we are already.

His comments about not getting the specification you want in new cars sounded a bit suspect too. Yes the specifications you want may not instantaneously available but if you are willing to allow a bit of lead time, I thought you could get what you wanted. Having never felt strongly about getting leopard print seats though I could be wrong in this!

His comments about professionals going into kindergartens rang true to a certain extent however early intervention is really important with an awful lots of issues - speech therapy before a child becomes an object of fun, social workers for their safety.

His comments about homes becoming hygienic apartments again had a grain of truth. A friend once told me she knew someone who spent £40 a month on cleaning stuff (and her children had asthma) but again I think that was down to personal choice. Yes there's lots of adverts for cleaning products but I can't think many people go to such an extreme.

Illich seems to be incredibly cynical about professionals. Yes there are problems but let's not ignore that the vast majority behave responsibly and do their work well. I think that many of the problems that come about are due to professionals not being allowed to behave as professionals - that managerialism creeping in again. Only in recent years did doctors have to focus on budgeting, likewise headmasters. They are no longer able to make decisions based just on their professional judgement. We really have to be able to take that step back, review our own practice and not become routinsed in what we do.

The Crisis of Confidence in Professional knowledge

I found this an interesting read as in my last job I helped train students to become Chartered Accountants, and part of my role was looking at the competencies and work experience required to qualify as a CA.
I thought the article was quite negative and seems to ignore the fact that over 99% of transactions dealt with by "professionals" are successful. Of course there has to be a question over who is being referred to as a "professional" here. Certainly the traditional professions invest a huge amount of time and energy qualifying, and I believe rightly deserve to be rewarded for that effort.
That having been said there are of course problems in every profession as the media is very quick to report, the current banking crisis being a case in point. I can only really speak from an accountants perspective but I see many of these problems arising from three related issues:

1. as the article points out technological change - this has brought about a demand from clients for solutions to problems NOW. In CA offices 70 hour weeks are common place amongst many staff trying to meet client deadlines. The fatigue and stress resulting from this can affect professional judgement.

2. information overload - again just looking at a CAs position, year on year, the syllabus required to qualify expands and expands. Much of this is as a consequence of fairly academic research bringing about new legislative requirements. Whether these actually add value to the end product produced is questionable. it has become more and more difficult to be a "generalist" dealing with accountancy, tax and audit over the past 15 years or so, the volume of technical material to keep up to date with being fairly monstrous.

3. and thirdly good old fashioned greed. I think this relates to the mangerial/professional conflict that Grant mentioned in the lecture. In accountancy firms partners are also extremely cost conscious leading to cuts in budgeted time to complete work. This has definitely led to corners being cut in some instances. In addition to this there is always the fear of losing a big client, along with all the fee income associated with it. Again this can impact on the professional's independence to make judgements, and disagree with the client when necessary.

In recognition of these points ethics has assumed a much more important part of the ICAS syllabus in recent years. There has always been a comprehensive ethics handbook, but students now receive ethics lectures where attendance is compulsory (the only part of the teaching where this is the case) and they must prepare a case study on ethics. This emphasis should hopefully help result in the next generation of accountants being more robust and aware of when their professional judgement is being compromised.

I'm not sure where all this leaves careers guidance. I think there is certainly a case to develop a much more in depth framework of ethical guidelines to follows. As we saw in Pete's PORG lessons there are definitely situations we could find ourselves in where its difficult to know what's the right course of action to take. The managerial/professional conflict definitely exists in practice too within careers guidance, and again its important to know when your professional judgement is being compromised.

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