My career chapter and the career systems interview

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Writing an autobiography is not an easy task and the process does not come naturally for all clients. In my career counselling practice I have found that some clients do not know how to start or what to write about. It seems ironic that the one person who knows the most about himself/herself finds it challenging to write a personal life story. Thus, this chapter provides an introduction to the qualitative career assessment and counselling procedure My Career Chapter (MCC; McIlveen, 2006). MCC is a semi-structured procedure that entails the client writing a brief autobiographical narrative—a chapter—of his/her life. This chapter also provides an overview of the semi-structured interview that accompanies MCC, the Career Systems Interview (CSI; McIlveen, 2003)1. Both CSI and MCC operationalise the Systems Theory Framework of career development (STF; Patton & McMahon, 2014). Furthermore, for the purposes of MCC’s conceptual principles and administration, the key elements of narrative career counselling are taken to be: Subjectivity and meaning; facilitated self-reflection; elaboration of self-concepts; collaborative process; and open-ended story (McIlveen & Patton, 2007). When using MCC, the counsellor should aim to operationalise all of these elements of narrative career counselling.