The healthy, well-adjusted client, who has a realistic concept of his own abilities and limitations, may seek an occupation appropriate to them. The person with a grandiose concept of himself may choose an objective far beyond his ability to attain. The person whose self-concept is one of inferiority may choose a job that is far beneath his capacities, or he may, in desperation, choose a job that is far above them, in the hope that the job will develop him into the kind of person he would like to be.
The person who likes to think of himself as a superior being whom others respect and admire may be strongly attracted to any occupation which permits him to be the center of attention. Given the requisite abilities, he may fulfill his self-concept by becoming a successful and considerate supervisor or employer, an expert tax consultant, a lawyer, physician, nurse, policeman, receptionist, or information clerk.
The person who feels secure only when he has someone else to tell him what to do may like to think of himself as the loyal, obedient, trusted assistant to someone whose strength and courage and competence he admires and in whose care he feels safe. Depending on his abilities, he may meet his needs and fulfill his self-concept as a confidential assistant to the president of a corporation, as a private secretary, as a member of the clergy in a church with a strong hierarchy, or as a statistical clerk, a soldier, or a domestic servant.
The compassionate idealist may be able to think of himself comfortably only as a person whose life is devoted to the service of others. He may be so selfish in some respects that his friends are skeptical of his ideals, yet he may be unable to respect himself unless he can do something that he feels will leave the world a better place. Depending on his abilities, he may find satisfaction as a social worker, a political reformer, an inventor, an entrepreneur, a union organizer, or a Salvation Army musician.
Self-concepts and needs are closely related. The client who is choosing an occupation will often be influenced by a need to implement or to deny his own concept of himself.
How the Theory Explains Illogical Choices
A person chooses and prepares for an occupation, he accepts or rejects a job that is offered to him, and he remains in or leaves a job he has held because he expects or hopes that this course of action will make him feel better. Most of us have seen ourselves, in some situation, act contrary to our intellectual convictions about what was the proper course of action. We could not explain to others or even to ourselves why we behaved so illogically. We only knew that we "just had to do it" or that we "just couldn't bring ourselves to do it." In these words we were saying that all our neat, logical processes had not really convinced us that the "logical" course of action would make us feel better.
When a young person chooses an occupation for which he is obviously not fitted, tenaciously resists all logical arguments against it, and stubbornly ignores the evidences of his inability to meet even the minimum qualifications, he is saying to us that something in this job promises to fulfill some emotional need which means a great deal to him. He will not give up this path to its fulfillment until he can find some more promising way in which to achieve the same satisfaction or relief that he thinks this occupation would bring him. If we and he can learn about other occupations, in which he can earn a living and in which he can also achieve some of the emotional satisfactions that he craves, we may be able to help him to a more realistic choice.
One may, of course, try to change a client's emotional cravings or to find ways of meeting them outside his occupation. This is sometimes desirable and sometimes successful. In most cases there is nothing wrong with the emotional needs that the client feels, there is nothing wrong about his desire to satisfy these needs through his work, but he does require help in finding an occupation which will fulfill his needs and in which he can get and hold a job.
Needs may lead us to satisfactions. Fortunately, emotional needs do not always lead us to irrational occupational choices. They are, perhaps, more likely to lead us to occupations in which we may find reasonable satisfaction and success if we can be patient and industrious enough to examine the occupations that are open to us, to compare them in terms of what they can offer us and what we can offer them, and if we can be realistic enough to face facts, including the fact that we are unlikely ever to achieve complete satisfaction and that life would be pretty dull if we did.
If our knowledge of ourselves or of occupations is insufficient, we are less likely to make a wise choice and more liable to cling stubbornly to an unrealistic choice because it offers the only route we can see to what we want. We may then find ourselves unemployed because we chose an occupation in which jobs are scarce or unsuccessful because we chose a job for which we lack the requisite abilities, or we may find ourselves unhappy because we were misinformed about what the work was really like.
Conscious choice may not be necessary. Vocational development begins and occupational choice may take place at any time after a person first becomes aware that an occupation might be a means of meeting the needs that he feels. Choices may change as frequently as a person's awareness of his needs changes or as frequently as he discovers that another occupation might better meet his needs. Some persons choose early and never change, like Mozart, who was playing the piano at the age of four and composing at seven. Some persons never do find an occupation which meets enough of their needs to give them any real feeling of satisfaction. Some persons achieve satisfaction without ever having made an occupational choice in the sense in which counselors usually think of choice.
Much of our vocational guidance to date appears to have been based upon the assumption that our objective is to help someone reach a vocational choice which both he and we will consider appropriate. Until this choice has been consciously identified and announced, we feel that the client still needs counseling and that our job as vocational counselors or teachers of occupations is incomplete. Once the choice is announced, if we consider it a good choice, we enjoy a sense of successful achievement and are disposed to direct our attention elsewhere.
All this may be quite appropriate in some cases; it is not necessarily appropriate or logical in all cases. The wise and conscious choice of an occupation is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. It is an intermediate objective. The ultimate objective is an individual who is reasonably useful and reasonably contented in his work. It is conceivable that this objective may sometimes be attained without the individual ever having consciously chosen a career.
We do not yet have sufficient evidence to prove that conscious vocational choice is either essential or inessential to good vocational adjustment. However, it seems at least conceivable that some persons may learn a good deal about themselves and a good deal about occupations and yet never make a vocational choice until they are offered a specific job which they must either accept or reject. It seems conceivable, also, that at this point, their knowledge of occupations and of themselves may enable them to make wiser decisions than they would have made without such knowledge. The teacher of occupations may thus contribute to improved vocational adjustment, even if his students do not reach final vocational choices before they finish his course. Vocational development may proceed even though the results are not immediately apparent.
