Abstract
The field of career development faces challenges in light of the significant ecological, economic, and political changes occurring globally. In response to these challenges, Guichard (2022) identified the need for new conceptual frameworks and interventions in the career field consistent with Arendt's (1958) broad perspective of action and the active life rather than simply making smooth transitions to occupations. In this article, contextual action theory is proposed as one alternative approach that addresses some of these issues regarding reconceptualizing career theory and practice. Specifically contextual action theory focuses on goal-directed action, provides a theoretical connection between action and career, incorporates social context, and provides a new framework for interventions. Specific approaches to career interventions and counseling are provided.
Guichard (2022) in his challenging and forward-looking paper in the Australian Journal of Career Development posed a critical question, that is, “How do we support the design of active lives that meet the challenges (economic, ecological, and political) of the twenty-first century?” (p. 5). Guichard answered this question by suggesting that the support of active lives in the current context requires a reconsideration of the conceptual frameworks that have been the bases of career guidance. He identified the need for new interventions and new conceptual frameworks on which they could be based. He considered current approaches as ultimately favoring the present market economy and social organization, which he suggested is undergoing and susceptible to considerable change. In his conclusion, Guichard states, “Hence there is an imperative need to build a new conceptual field in which to root new interventions” (p. 11).
The purpose of this article is to describe how contextual action theory (CAT) (Young, 2019; Young et al., 2015a; Young & Valach, 2000, 2019) can serve to address the challenges that Guichard (2022) identified and contribute to the new conceptual field he envisioned. Briefly, CAT is an integrated framework for understanding human action as goal-directed, although not necessarily rational. Actions are understood as the intentional processes oriented toward achieving a desired end state. These processes are engaged individually and with others. As we point out in this article, human action is integral part of career, and thus an important conceptual framework on which to base career interventions.
We do not contend that CAT is the only or best answer to the relevant and timely issues Guichard (2022) identified. Rather it offers one alternative or extension to current approaches in which these challenges can be addressed. In order to appreciate the contribution of CAT, we reflect initially on our understanding of Guichard's question.
Understanding Guichard's question
Before we describe how CAT addresses Guichard's (2022) concerns, it is important to understand the main components of his question. These are (1) the current context, (2) what is an active life, and how is it constructed, and (3) what role does the field of career development have in facilitating the active life. The description of these issues provided here is a brief summary of Guichard's much more substantial argument.
The current context
In framing the current context, Guichard (2022) relied on his earlier identification of the economic, ecological, and political challenges that the world is currently facing (Guichard, 2018). Essentially these challenges are ones of demography and social justice, climate change and the depletion of natural resources, and the degradation of work and employment. These challenges are in contrast to most career interventions, which in Guichard's view, are directed toward a smooth transition to today's world of work; where the skills and orientation needed for employability are critical. He bases this view on the definition of lifelong vocational guidance provided by the Council of the European Union (2008), which identified employability as the outcome of vocational guidance.
Guichard (2022) identified three major types of career interventions currently in use: (a) find relevant information to direct paths to professional inclusion, (b) construct adaptable self-constructs for employability, and (c) clarify what gives long-term meaning and reflect on the role and place of work in their lives. Guichard's view is that these more traditional approaches to vocational guidance do not account explicitly for wider ethical, societal, and ecological perspectives, unless client interest drives such discussions and interventions. He also identified recent work that is beginning to challenge these more traditional approaches to career interventions (e.g., Blustein, 2019; Richardson, 2012; Savickas et al., 2009).
In Guichard's (2022) view, the basic question is whether the final purpose of vocational guidance is “to ensure the optimal functioning of the market economy and social organization or to transform this economy and organization in view of increasing social justice and optimal human development” (p. 9).
Guichard's (2018) earlier discussion leads us to understand that vocational guidance is a two-way street—that the career practitioner is co-constructing a future with the client through their work together. However, at present that co-construction is often in the direction of facilitating occupational selection, preparation, and advancement. Currently, the career professional may often hold or assume they hold a level of neutrality relative to what the client wants. Broader assumptions are not examined. The two-way street that Guichard intimates suggests a different type of role for career practitioners. It is one in which they may be more involved in educating and supporting clients’ greater awareness of the ethical, social, and ecological challenges the world currently is facing and possible opportunities that may exist for the client.
Career practitioners often work from a practical perspective. Although knowledgeable of theories and research, they are confronted with the issue of what works in a given situation for this client or client group. It is in this context that outcomes of practice beyond immediate expectancies may be unexamined, or if examined may reflect the final purpose of career guidance that Guichard (2022) identified.
The active life
Guichard (2022) relies on Hannah Arendt's (1958) notion of active life as the basis to begin to address the challenges of the current context. Arendt is identified as a political philosopher. Perhaps it is the identification of the problem to some extent as political that drew Guichard to her work as a basis for addressing the current situation, for it seems that one solution may be at the political level. Essentially, he suggests that Arendt's distinction between labor (repetitive activities for survival), work (productive activity that results in a recognizable outcome), and action (collective activities of making the world together) is critical to the future of career development field. Arendt's concern is that labor has been elevated in recent times, over work and action. Summarizing Arendt's view, d'Entreves (2022) wrote, “Obsessed with life, productivity, and consumption, we have turned into a society of laborers and jobholders who no longer appreciate the values associated with work, nor those associated with action.” The notion of action in Arendt's and Guichard's view represents the collective activities of making the world together. Certain key ideas of Arendt's notion of action are centered on notions of freedom (i.e., “to start something new, to do the unexpected, with which all human beings are endowed by virtue of being born” (D’Entreves, 2022, Section 4.1), plurality (i.e., the idea that this freedom is not engaged in isolation but in the presence of, others), that action has the “capacity to disclose the identity of the agent”, that is, reveal individuals’ who as distinct from their what (i.e., their abilities and talents). (D’Entreves, 2022, Sections 4.1, 4.2).
The challenges Guichard articulates cannot be addressed successfully in a world concerned with productivity and consumption in Arendt's view. It is more than simply working together; there is the sense that we come together to shape our world. This view is a call for career practice to go beyond a concern with employability within the current system.
One of the things that Arendt's (1958) distinction helps with is that there are multiple meanings associated with work, and thus, the interpretation of what one is doing is relevant. Arendt's understanding of action is that it is essentially relational. Her view is that “action … is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act” (p. 188).
Guichard (2022) suggests that the notion of action provides a space beyond simply a focus on employability, economics, and the smooth running of capitalistic systems, within which we currently function. Arendt's (1958) view offers a framework in which we can reconceptualize how we shape our world in very specific ways – towards a better, more sustainable and equitable future. Arendt has spoken broadly and philosophically about action and active life. Guichard acknowledges that Arendt points us in a direction. He also recognizes the need for new conceptual and research innovations that can bring these ideas to practice in the career field. When it comes to having a conceptual, research, and practice-based framework for career development, we need one that is close- to the phenomenon in question and takes into consideration human factors not only from a philosophical perspective but a psychological one as well.
The role of career development
Guichard's (2022)view is that the previous models of career development are not value neutral. Indeed his citation of an official definition of lifelong guidance from the Council of the European Union (2008) implies a definitive societal value for career guidance. The larger career in which we are all participating is equitable and sustainable development. It is no longer simply about the individual. However, notwithstanding recent developments in the career field, Guichard (2022) questions the approaches that do not go beyond ensuring “the optimal functioning of the current market economy and social organization” (p. 9). Rather, he asks whether and what role career guidance has in “transforming this economy and organization in view of increasing social justice and enabling optimal human development” (p. 9). Some would answer this question by suggesting that career guidance has no explicit role in this task. One answer that Guichard himself suggests is that the focus on meaning in constructionist approaches (e.g., Savickas et al., 2009) begins to address this question. Of course, as we point out in this article, meaning is generated in and by the social context, which can reinforce given purposes for career guidance as well as challenge new ones.
The underlying question may be even broader. Is it rather, do we understand how human development intersects with global sustainability (the planet's needs) and social justice? And what is the role of career professionals in transforming the fundamental approaches individuals take when thinking of work and career within this new context, as opposed to wearing some form of a neutral hat?
The response of contextual action theory
Not to oversimplify Arendt's complex and rich understanding of the human condition and Guichard's challenge to the field, it is our view that CAT points to some conceptual and practical ways in which some of the challenges facing career development theory, research, and practice can be addressed.
CAT is a conceptual and research approach to vocational psychology based on the notion that human action is intentional and goal-directed, although not necessarily rational (e.g., Young & Domene, 2019; Young & Valach, 2000, Young et al., 2002, 2015a, 2019, 2021). This framework has provided the basis for applications to practice (e.g., Young et al., 2020; Young, Domene, Chiang et al., 2020; Young, Domene, Pradhan et al., 2022b) and research in the career field (e.g., Wall et al., 2020; Young et al., 2011).
CAT is a constructionist and relational approach (Valach et al., 2015) that is grounded on the premise that people generally understand their own and others’ behavior as goal-directed. It also recognizes the complexity of human action that is constituted by individual, social, cultural, as well as bodily and environmental factors (Raeff, 2020). In addition to the goal-directed nature of action and its complexity, CAT provides a theoretical connection with a career by recognizing a time perspective. Specifically, when a series of actions over a mid-term length of time have a common goal, they are identified as a project, for example, the project of participating in a community group dealing with social isolation. When a number of projects share similar meaning across a significant portion of one's life, they are identified as a career. For example, taking a course in social change, campaigning for social justice for immigrants, assisting with finding suitable housing for refugees, and similar activities may contribute to a meaningful, life-enhancing career, although not necessarily a paid occupation. Joint actions and projects, that is, what people do together, is particularly salient in CAT as it is in Arendt's (1958) view of active life.
It is important to acknowledge that Arendt's (1958) view of action and the one articulated in CAT are not the same. Arendt's stance is a philosophical one in which action reflects those aspects of human functioning tied to plurality and freedom. Action in CAT is a more inclusive term referring to all human goal-directed behavior. Many human behaviors fall within the career field such as labor and work that are not included in Arendt's understanding of action. However, we propose our understanding of action, and CAT more broadly, as a step toward realizing the social implications of career, which is what Guichard and Arendt are concerned about. We include labor and work as goal-directed human actions. It is the social embeddedness of action in CAT helps to establish the link with Arendt's perspective. The critical issues to address from her perspective include toward what goals are action directed and how are they constructed, which are issues that CAT can address.
Six ways in which CAT addresses Guichard's (2022) challenge to develop conceptual frameworks and interventions for the design of active lives of people in the twenty-first century are (a) CAT represents one alternative to current frameworks for career development; (b) its focus is on goal-directed human action, (c) its attention is to the social context, and (d) its understanding that meaningful career as more than paid employment. In addition, CAT provides (e) a framework for describing actions between people and (f) a basis for new interventions in the career field. In this discussion, we undertake to keep in mind whether and to what extent CAT facilitates more than an individualistic perspective of career. Similarly, we also want to note the practical applications of CAT in light of the changing circumstances Guichard (2022) brought to our attention.
An alternative conceptual field
While not entirely new, CAT offers a significant alternative to what heretofore have been the primary conceptual frameworks in vocational psychology. These frameworks have focused on the individual from individual differences (e.g., Holland, 1985), developmental (e.g., Super, 1957), and social-cognitive (e.g., Lent & Brown, 2019) perspectives. While not ignoring these approaches, CAT adds a distinctly social, relational, constructionist, and systemic approach to the processes involved in career. Valach (2021) argued that CAT brings a definitive non-Cartesian approach to vocational psychology, which provides a focus on the “emergent properties of the agent and environment relationship” (p. 137). This non-Cartesian approach is in contrast to other approaches that assume a perspective in which a person's attitudes, beliefs, and characteristics predict career behavior. More broadly, action has received attention recently in a variety of ways in psychology (e.g., Stewart, 2010; Tewes et al., 2017). Notably, Raeff (2020) defined action as “what we do … in relation to others” (p. xii). In Raeff's view, action is complex and involves social and cultural processes.
While the language may be different, CAT incorporates notions similar to Arendt's view of active life. CAT includes, for example, labor, work, and action as part of career, comparable to active life. Furthermore, CAT is not simply focused on the notion of a smooth transition to work. Rather, it addresses the possibility of meaningful and life-enhancing work and career and other activities in the social, cultural, and political contexts in which they are enacted. The particular relevance of CAT in the changing political, economic, and ecological context is that it is a framework to understand the new and important actions that are emerging. Some of these actions will develop into projects and careers that will constitute a changing world. Many of these will be relevant to the future of the planet or to the social justice practiced by its inhabitants. Obviously, it is not possible to identify all of these emerging projects and career at this stage. However, by describing goal-directed action and establishing the connections between actions that is possible through CAT, the career field can begin to contribute to the formulation of the future that addresses the challenges that Guichard (2022) addressed.
One advantage of taking the perspective of goal-directed action is its closeness to human experience. Human action as goal-directed is a basic way in which people understand their own and others’ behavior. This closeness to human experience is important for career counselors and practitioners who often work from pragmatic and practical perspectives. The alternative conceptual field for career practice that Guichard (2022) envisions has to speak to practitioners.
Beer (2022) recognized that a useful theory for practice is one that is “contextualized,” which is the case with CAT. It acknowledges that context is not simply the identification of independent variables that influence outcomes. Rather these contextual processes contribute to the constitution of what the parties are doing. The contextual processes become part and parcel of the action. Thus, the career-related actions of individual clients, and a host of others’ actions, construct the context of career and are constructed by it.
What CAT allows us to do in the career field is to attend to the broader systems in which work, occupation, and active lives are constituted. It allows career practitioners to unpack their unexamined or implicit assumptions by looking at career and career practice differently. Elsewhere we have described the systems, perspectives, and organization of action that speak to how meaning is constructed over mid-term lengths of time through projects consisting of several actions, and how career reflects several projects over a longer-term time period (Young & Valach, 2019). The perspective on action used in CAT refers to the observable behavior of the action, the cognitive processes (thoughts and feelings) experienced while carrying out the action, and the social meaning of the action, that is, how it is understood by the actor and others. Finally, action, project, and career are organized through the actors’ intentional frameworks that construct a broad framework for our lives. They are steered by a number of functional steps as the actors move toward their goals and require and use specific skills, resources, and other environmental involved in engaging in the action.
Goal-directed action
The goal-directed nature of human action is central to CAT. People perceive their own and others’ behavior as directed toward goals. Arendt (1958) also refers to the three components of the active life, that is, labor, work, and action, as goal-directed. She defines goals broadly and uses them to distinguish between labor, work, and action. d'Entreves (2022) summarized Arendt's distinctions between these activities as follows: Labor is judged by its ability to sustain human life, to cater to our biological needs of consumption and reproduction, work is judged by its ability to build and maintain a world fit for human use, and action is judged by its ability to disclose the identity of the agent, to affirm the reality of the world, and to actualize our capacity for freedom. (Section 4.1)
The social context
To appreciate and foster an understanding of a career and to assist in facilitating it in others, career theory and practice needs a perspective that is able to accommodate social context and the complexity of human action over time. The CAT system includes the notion of joint action, that is, what individuals do with others. As actions and goals become more complex and extend across time, CAT has introduced notions of project and career which account for how human action involves others, including the institutional other. The explicit identification of the social context in these processes can serve to address issues such as social inclusion and sustainability.
CAT does not intend to politicize career development and career practice. However, Arendt (1958) reflects the view that speaking together is the first step in the political process. As noted earlier, Raeff (2020) used the phrase “act in relation to others” (p. xii) to capture the social and cultural contexts in which people act. The notion of joint action is particularly important in the new context because it is not only about the individuals themselves but also their relation to others as they engage in the active life. Additionally, CAT addresses the relation of culture and action.
More than occupational career
Guichard (2022) suggests that our interventions have to be built around not having young people think about the world of work as presently constituted. Rather, we should be helping them think about what forms of an active life can achieve objectives of sustainable and equitable development. By distinguishing between action, project and career, CAT does not limit itself to the occupational career. In this perspective, we also see employment as having the possibility of more than earning a wage in exchange for the application of a skill or service. Employment can provide meaning in one's life, especially if that employment addresses the challenges our planet faces. Indeed, CAT to some extent resembles Arendt's (1958) understanding of the active life in terms of addressing the notion of meaning and how meaning is constructed across time through action, joint actions and projects.
A framework describing actions between people
CAT has allowed us to propose a framework for meaningful action, motivated projects, and life-enhancing career (Young & Valach, 2019). This framework provides an important link to the active lives Arendt (1958) proposes. What is especially useful for practitioners and researchers in CAT is the identification of the specifics of meaningful actions, motivated projects, and life-enhancing career. By identifying the goals or meaning of an action, project or career, we are able to understand how they are steered, the broad steps that are needed to realize an action, project or career, and the conscious and unconscious behaviors, structural support and resources that important components of meaningful actions, motivated projects, and life-enhancing career. The identification and description of these specifics provide the basis for considering how to practice as well as generate questions for researchers. These domains and issues are described in detail for each of meaningful actions, motivated projects with others, and life-enhancing career, at the level of a broad theoretical framework (Young and Valach). Each has to be examined in detail through research and practice. However, it may be useful to identify these components for a life-enhancing career as this is most closely related to the vision that Guichard (2022) and Arendt (1958) invite.
For a career to be life-enhancing at the level of goals, it should meaningful over the long term, socially integrated, and emotionally satisfying. At the level of steps, the life-enhancing career should be challenging, allowing both predictability and novelty while also attending to emotional issues. The elements of the life-enhancing career address the resources, skills, and structural support needed for that career to be possible and satisfactory. Each of these characteristics for the life-enhancing career is based on the coming together of a series of motivated projects and meaningful actions.
Career practitioners need to ask themselves to what extent and how are their clients’ actions, projects and career reflect and incorporate these issues. Certainly, it is our view that career counseling can address a number of them. But there are issues that need to be addressed at the other levels. For example, the resources needed to redirect a different understanding of work and occupation may involve political and economic shifts. However, the critical question for career practitioners to address is how are my clients responding to each of these issues. How are they constructing a life-enhancing career in light of the changing context? What client actions and projects are likely to contribute to long-term life meaning in the context of the current and anticipated economic ecological, and social changes?
We recognize that much of the work that practitioners and clients engage in together is at the level of projects, although long-term career may be the ultimate concern. Many may be asking the question, what kinds of projects in the present will allow me to construct a long-term meaningful career? The practitioner and client are joined not only by their common work on the issue that the client may be presenting but also by virtue of the social, economic, and political context in which they find themselves.
This understanding or theory of action invites close attention to the level of projects. In a period of rapid and substantial change, it may be difficult to identify the long-term structures, for example, particular occupations, that will be needed and actualized in the future. The identification of projects may be easier.
The other issue is one of meaning—goals and meaning are connected in CAT. What will have meaning in this new and evolving context? If the environment needs attention, then that will draw the attention of those who wish or need to engage with it in specific projects that can develop into more long-term careers.
A conceptual framework for new interventions
In the conclusion of his article, Guichard (2022) called for “a new conceptual field in which to root new interventions” (p. 11). The conceptual framework of CAT offers the option to base some interventions on the joint actions and projects in which people are engaged together at present or ones that can be anticipated. Essentially, CAT allows us to see the work between the practitioner and the client as a joint, goal-directed action or project. This action or project is what the practitioner and client are doing together and, at the same time, addresses what the client is doing outside this professional relationship that is of relevance.
Some of the ways in which CAT can begin to approach the view of active lives that Arendt envisions is first by identifying the actions clients are engaged in, understanding these actions as goal-directed that require steps in their accomplishment, as well as skills and resources and a context in which they can be carried out. Then the career professional can invite consideration of the projects in which the action is a part, or indeed, it is sometimes easier to begin with the client's current projects, work back to specific actions and forward to envisioned career.
The limitation or weakness is that many may assume that this is but a minor iteration of the predominant individualistic paradigm. We would like to suggest that if CAT is used in a way that fundamentally changes thinking, then it may be helpful in addressing the current situation. The change in thinking includes a shift from action as caused to action as embodied and enacted.
Research and practice examples and questions
CAT has been used to frame research questions and inform practice in a number of areas related to career, for example, enhancing clinical practice with diverse populations (Young et al., 2019; Young et al., 2022a), career counseling generally (Young, 2017), and for emerging adults (Domene et al., 2019), for transition projects, including career, for new immigrants (Young et al., 2022b). All these topics reflect the broad understanding of Guichard's (2022) and Arendt's (1958) active lives. These mostly qualitative studies describe participants’ actions and projects. In these studies, participants were able to understand their actions and projects more fully and, in some cases, were provided support for them. These studies also provide practitioners with a fuller understanding of the richness and complexity of actual cases from the perspective of goal-directed action.
Applications to practice
Several applications to practice reflecting the CAT framework that has been developed through this research. In all of these applications, the shift is from concern with thoughts and feelings or relatively stable traits and characteristics that precede actions to the actions themselves. In CAT, cognitions, traits, and other characteristics are seen as part and parcel of the action rather than causes that precede the action. They, along with other aspects, constitute the action. In order to facilitate this in career practice, we have developed and used the following in both research and practice:
Focus on joint action and projects through dyads. In the shift to focusing on the action of dyads, CAT recognizes that many pertinent actions and projects related to career occur with significant others in the client's life. Conceptualizing with whom these actions might occur and engaging in interventions with them may shift the focus to joint action and, importantly, joint projects. The literature cited in this article includes several examples. One that stands out is the study of the joint projects between parent and teenager in deciding and supporting the teen preparing for a career in professional figure skating (Wall, et al., 2020). Across a group of cases in this study, the themes of the parent-teen projects focussed on one of the following (a) negotiating school, sport, and extra-curricular commitments, (b) progressing toward skating goals, or (c) fostering non-sport development. All the projects were embedded in parent-teen relationship project. The self-confrontation interview. When dyad participants engage in joint action in a practice or research setting, their conversation can be video-recorded. Identified as the self-confrontation interview (Young et al., 1994), the dyad's video-recorded conversation is reviewed by each participant with a facilitator to access the participant's thoughts and feelings as they engaged in the action. These cognitive processes are considered as important parts of joint action. This procedure facilitates the client's awareness of these processes as they engage in relevant action with significant others. In this procedure, the video is stopped at approximately one-minute intervals and the participant is asked what they were thinking or feeling at that time. This procedure is carried out immediately after the joint action itself. In our work, these joint actions have largely been conversations, but other kinds of joint actions are amenable to the method (e.g., Zaidman-Zait et al., 2014). Systematic observation. The notion of action invites its systematic observation if the relevant action can be videotaped or audio recorded (Valach et al., 2015). The development of the narrative of the dyadic action and the identification of the projects depend on the observation of dyadic action by the practitioner or researcher. Systematic observation of the action between dyad members relies on the videotaping and transcription of relevant actions of the dyad and their analysis by the practitioner or researcher. This analysis is based on the meaning/goals of the joint action, the cognitive processes that the actors engage in when implementing the action, as well as the behavior, skills, unconscious processes, and resources that are used in the action. While the process of systematic observation may seem cumbersome for purposes of intervention, it affords a fuller description of the action between the relevant parties than naïve or intuitive observations, although the latter is satisfactory. It also provides the basis for the narratives and project monitoring, subsequent steps in this process. Narrative description of the joint project. Based on the previous three steps, practitioners can provide clients with a written narrative description of joint project in which they are engaged (Valach et al., 2015). Separate narratives for each participant and a joint narrative of both participants are presented to the participants individually and jointly. These written narrative summaries in goal-directed language are helpful in identifying the joint project in which participants are engaged. They have been found to resonate with participants’ experience, but serve to affirm the participants’ joint projects (e.g., Young et al., 2022b). Monitoring of joint project. The joint project can be monitored by researchers or practitioners by telephone or online chats with participants individually. Essentially this procedure is intended to report on project-pertinent actions and overall how the joint project is developing. Specific components of the actions and projects, namely goals, steps, and behaviors and resources can be reviewed to the extent that they are meaningful to the client.
Counseling from a CAT perspective
All career interventions are not problem-based. Some are intended as educational, informative and supportive approaches. Nevertheless, as people try to make sense of and engage in this changing world in a meaningful way over the long-term, many seek out more therapeutically-oriented help for the challenges they face. Such support can be based on and facilitate client action and project. To this end, CAT has proposed five tasks for counseling. These tasks apply to career counseling as well as counseling regarding other issues. Consistent with Arendt's (1958) view about active life, CAT does not make a hard distinction between career and other counseling topics. Thus, these tasks apply broadly to counseling, as an activity between counselor and client as they engage with each other.
The tasks are “(a) creating and maintaining an effective working alliance, (b) identifying the organization and systems of action that are salient in the client's life, (c) addressing problematic actions, projects and careers, (d) addressing emotional and emotional memory, and (e) connecting with what occurs in counseling with the client's daily life” (Domene et al., 2015, p.155).
These tasks are not dissimilar from what is accomplished in other counseling approaches, however, it is important to note that action has a key and more explicit place in them. The working alliance, for example, is a counselor-client project, and is subject to all the criteria for meaningful joint action. Similarly, identifying the salient actions and projects in the client's life is one means to address them. Similar to the narrative description of the joint project (above), attending to how actions and projects are organized in the client's life facilitates increased awareness of goals. Then, of course, counseling can address the problematic ones, through attending to the emotional issues involved and making the connection to daily life.
Young et al. (2022a) provide an example of the use of the application of CAT to counseling. Specifically, this case dealt with the experiences and challenges of a young adult immigrant living in a new country, a situation that is likely to increase with globalization. Assistance to this client is provided in several ways, but center around identifying the projects that the client was engaged in connected to her reason to come to counseling, that is, to develop friendships in her new country.
Education as a social process
The CAT framework invites career practitioners to engage in the education of their clients and students more broadly regarding how to engage in meaningful action, motivated projects, and life-enhancing careers. Courses and other group activities to bring greater awareness to how life-enhancing careers are constituted or will likely be constituted in the future can only be helpful. Flum (2015), for example, proposed an exploratory action model in education in which peers, with teachers as facilitators, can engage in relevant exploratory processes. However, the burden does not fall on career practitioners alone. Broadly speaking, education, like culture itself, is a part of the wider social context in which action, projects and career are enacted. In Raeff's view (2020), educational processes like other social and cultural processes contribute to how action is structured. How that happens is a complex and multifaceted process, involving politics, economics, globalization, and social media among others. The career professional who is knowledgeable about these processes, who can see their place in the processes in their clients engage, may be in a good position to assist their clients. The critical factor in a career educational, guidance, or counseling intervention is the ability to frame the process from the perspective of goal-directed action and engage with the client from this perspective.
Some strengths and limitations
We have attempted to point out that the strength of CAT for the career field given the current global economic, political and ecological challenges in the world is the shift to a more explicit consideration of human action. We maintained that such a shift would make the consideration of the active life that Arendt and Guichard espouse much more possible. Career development for many will be less about a smooth transition to occupation and more about how one constructs short-term and long-term meaning in one's life. At the same time, we recognize that CAT does not promote particular values or solutions to the current global challenges. Indeed, actions, projects, and careers could be undertaken that exacerbate these challenges rather than ameliorate them, which is currently the case in many instances. However, the framework provides the basis for examining the processes of engaging in active lives.
The approach we have described may appear overly complex, unwieldy, and perhaps too theoretical for practitioners. We appreciate this concern when one considers the full approach and its application to practice. Nevertheless, we maintain that most practitioners intuitively already use aspects of CAT in their practice. For example, they interpret client actions as goal-directed, they see a connection between the way clients engage in immediate, short-term and long-term, and ultimately both practitioner and client are concerned with the life the client lives and the context in which it is lived.
Conclusion
The need to implement conceptual frameworks and interventions that facilitate the transition to sustainable development, based on fair economic exchange systems and allow all humans to lead decent active lives is the current challenge facing the career development field. In this article, CAT is proposed as one step in that direction because it focuses on goal-directed human action, how meaning is constructed in social contexts, without leaving aside issue of goals, cognitive and emotional processes, and skills and resources. CAT does not have all the answers, but it provides a framework that can assist practitioners and researchers in the field of career development to develop and respond appropriately as the challenges that Guichard (2022) identified.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
