At the other end of the scale is the complex case of the individual who is only vaguely aware, if at all, of the emotional needs which drive him toward a particular occupation. Thus, a brilliant student who has little skill in teaching, even less patience with slower learners, and no genuine desire to help others to learn may nevertheless choose teaching as his occupation because the only real success he has ever achieved has been in the classroom and he fears to leave the environment in which he has enjoyed success or because something in his past experience has left him with a desire to dominate other people, and teaching is the only occupation in which he sees an opportunity to do so. He may not be conscious of either of these motives and yet may be driven by them more compulsively than if he were aware of them. He may even become a teacher and remain a teacher all his life, despite the fact that neither he nor his students really enjoy his teaching, because he never finds any other occupation that offers him the security of the familiar classroom or the opportunity to play the dominant role.
Abnormal as well as normal needs may find expression in the choice of an occupation, sometimes with unfortunate results.
There are many occupations in modern society, almost all of them concerned with the executive side of power, which confer a limited license for the infliction of pain or of arbitrary authority, and these occupations are of a type indispensable to the present pattern of life.
Tolerated delinquents appear in centralized cultures at two distinct levels. They may enter and control the machinery of legislative and political power, as policy-makers and rulers. They may also be found, and tend in general to be more numerous, in the machinery of enforcement which intervenes between the policy-maker and the citizen. We owe our present recognition of the presence and the role of these tolerated delinquents, and of their capacity for mischief, to the rise of totalitarian states, but the reappearance of delinquency and military tyranny as socially accepted policies in civilized states has led, and must lead, to a scrutiny of similar mechanisms within the social democracies.
By comparison with other employments, the enforcement services offer poor remuneration and a severer discipline. There is, therefore, in centralized societies, a tendency for the personnel of these occupations to be drawn increasingly from those whose main preoccupation is a desire for authority, for power of control and of direction over others.
The needs and the demands of individuals are probably as varied and as complex as the individuals themselves, but if the individual sees or even subconsciously feels any way in which the choice of an occupation may help to meet his needs, then his needs will affect his choice. It is desirable that we as counselors understand this, not because the understanding will enable us to solve all the complex problems that will be brought to us, but because we may then better understand the less complex cases and be of more help to them. Without this understanding, we may be baffled by the choices of individuals whose emotional needs or value patterns differ from ours. A choice that seems illogical to us, and would indeed be illogical if we made it for ourselves, becomes logical when we understand the needs and the values of the person who makes it.
