Book Review: Applying Career Development Theory to Counseling (3rd ed.)

It is also an ideal desktop companion for the experienced, and not so experienced, career practitioner. The third edition of this text includes a number of significant updates and extensions, including a new chapter on constructivist approaches (Chapter 11)— specifically personal construct theory and narrative counselling—which replaces a previous chapter on psychodynamics. Chapter 12, ‘Parental influence theories’, explores recent research on attachment theory as it relates to career development. Chapter 13 ‘Krumboltz’s social learning theory’ has been substantially re-written, as has Chapter 14 ‘Career decision making theory’, which investigates the emerging interest in spiritual concerns and its relationship to career development. Keeping pace with current trends in social theory, Sharf has made additions to each chapter by exploring feminist and multicultural (Native American Indian, African-American and Hispanic) issues in career development and counselling. The growth in this intellectual and moral trend reflects the growing dissatisfaction with the often narrow, white, eurocentric, male perspectives on which the majority of traditional psychological, sociological and economic theory is based. This edition is divided into an introduction and four parts, ‘Trait and type theories’, ‘Life-span theory’, ‘Special focus theories’ and ‘Theoretical integration’. The text also contains numerous case examples illustrating how each of the career development theories relates to counselling practice—an important feature of the book. The introduction explores the basic precepts underpinning the various career development theories, as well as an introduction to counselling skills (e.g., attending behaviour, questioning, reflection, reinforcement and testing). Chapters Two to Five investigate four different trait and type theories, which include trait and factor theory, work adjustment theory, Holland’s theory of types and the ubiquitous Myers-Briggs type theory. The ‘trait and type theories’ Sharf notes: