Another main type of modification that has been occurring in theoretical thinking about vocational development is the introduction of more flexibility into the concept of stages. The idea that successive periods of life are qualitatively different from one another has figured largely in what Freud, Piaget, Erikson, and several other prominent writers have had to say about development in general, and in what Ginzberg, Super, and others have had to say about vocational development in particular. It has become more and more clear that the sequences are not linked to particular ages and that the pattern that emerges under one set of circumstances may turn out to be very different from the pattern emerging under another set. In some individuals, for example, Cinzberg's fantasy choices may persist for a much longer time than in others. Some persons prolong Erikson's search for identity far beyond adolescence. While these developmental theorists probably never intended that their concepts be used in a rigid, all-or-none way, the habit of thinking flexibly about developmental stages has not been easy to inculcate and we are only now beginning to master it.
A third sort of change in the structure of our thinking that has been occurring is the coalescence of the two main varieties of psychological inquiry, experimental and correlational, first called for in Cronbach's presidential address (1957). The need for such a synthesis was especially acute in occupational research. For decades, applied psychologists schooled in manipulative experimental techniques worked on problems of industrial training and performance, while applied psychologists schooled in psychometric techniques worked on problems of selection. The goal of the first group was to change behavior, and the more change that could be brought about the better satisfied they were with their experimental techniques. The goal of the second group was to measure aptitudes, and the more unchanging such measurements were from test to retest the better satisfied they were with the reliability of their psychometric techniques. Cronbach and Gleser (1965) succeeded in constructing new models for research designed to investigate selection and training simultaneously. Decision theory ties the two together.
The implications of a shift of this sort for vocational counseling have not yet been fully explored. It is clear that counselors must become creators as well as assessors of aptitudes. It has become very clear that the measured aptitudes on which a person's occupational decisions are based have developed to their present level through learning processes and that, even though individuals differ in hereditary endowments on which talents are based, what a person is able to do depends to a considerable extent on what he has learned and practiced. But, at any given period of his life, the individual has only a finite amount of time and energy to devote to the cultivation of new talents. Thus a person with several options will usually find it advantageous to capitalize on some aptitude he has already developed. But a person who has very few possibilities open to him may be wise to devote a large amount of time and energy to bring at least one usable aptitude into existence. To do this requires skill in both assessment and experimental manipulation.
Other Areas of Application
Occupational thinking along the lines we have been following can be brought to bear on problems having nothing to do with poverty. One example is the problem of technologically displaced workers. The first matter on which the efforts of counselor and counselee must be focused in such cases is a determination of the valid alternative courses of action open to the client. If we interpret "courses of action" broadly enough to include other productive efforts besides work for salary or wages, it will sometimes turn out, especially in the cases of workers not far from retirement age, that such "vocations" as the cultivation of a craft, or wholehearted participation in some project for civic improvement, may constitute a sounder decision than retraining for a new occupation, provided that financial pressures are not too compelling. For an individual who must continue to earn his living, an educational program designed to develop an aptitude for a whole new field of work may be preferable to a briefer training program designed to develop a particular skill that may be rendered obsolete by the next round of technological change.
Another kind of problem that may benefit from consideration in terms of possibilities, limits, and choices is the problem of workers in underdeveloped countries. What sense of "vocation" does the individual in, for example, a poor Latin American country now have? Is he investing time and energy in something important to him, even if he is not doing what we consider to be productive work? If not, what alternatives does he have, or does he see? If they are non-existent or unappealing, how can the person develop psychological resources he does not now possess, and what economic changes in his country would need to occur concurrently in order for such resources to be utilized?
A third kind of problem that would be more readily solved if counselors were to think in terms of the concepts proposed here is the case of the handicapped person whose disability was incurred at such an early age that he has been unable to make any sort of vocational choice at any stage of his development. It is more meaningful to analyze such a person in his life situation in terms of possibility structures than in terms of stages of vocational development. How has he dealt with the arbitrary and fixed limits imposed on him by his handicap? Has he been active or passive in his response? Has he thought about his own future, immediate or remote, or has the time span he encompasses in his thinking become unusually restricted? Some assessment of such factors can help the counselor decide what must be done first. It is useless to try to stimulate a client to choose an occupation and formulate plans for training and entry into the occupation if he does not already possess some awareness of the future and some concepts about what is and is not possible for him. This awareness may need to be brought into existence through actual and vicarious experience before occupational planning is feasible. While rehabilitation counselors are the professional workers to whom such cases are ordinarily assigned, they have often noted that the process involved in helping such persons is not really rehabilitation at all. Habilitation would be a more descriptive term. The important thing is that they do need help and counselors must learn to help them.
