Games Metaphors and Career Counselling

Using “games” in conjunction with the Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) as a career metaphor for use in counselling has been explored and it is argued that it has been largely overlooked in literature to date. What the CTC reveals is that we are not in anything like ‘total control’ similar to games where the outcome can be predicted but can never be guaranteed. Uncertainty always remains. The “Game” metaphor can provide an example of analogical reasoning that is useful for dealing with the modern counselling realities of complexity, connectedness, systems, changeability and chance.

The contemporary world of work is characterised by ongoing change and increasingly obvious complexity through systemic interconnection eg the other players on the same team or the opposing players. The challenges for career development as a consequence are dealing with cognitive overload and uncertainty. Uncertainty in particular presents us with opportunities to develop potential we and our clients, would not otherwise have known we had and to generate choices that we otherwise would have failed to recognise or create.

Career Counsellors have the chance to help clients in this great challenge. Life’s uncertainty may on occasions be the challenge to suffer courageously and stave off despair; however, it can also be a foundation for hope and responsibility for action to create a better career, a better life and a better world. Change is not always a bad thing.

For a more indepth look into this theory and more specific examples of the games metaphors, you can read “Game as a Career Metaphor: a Chaos Theory Career Counselling Application” by Robert George Leslie Pryor and Jim E.H. Bright* which is included within The British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol. 37, No. 1, February 2009, available from Taylor & Francis publishers - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/03069885.asp