Over the past few decades, there have been calls to customize therapy for men. Researchers have increasingly become aware of the impact of masculinity on men and their psychological health, their willingness to seek help, and their experience of therapy. Recommendations have been published for how to enhance engagement and therapeutic change for men in counseling. This article systematically collected and examined recommendations for individual male-friendly therapy from 44 sources written over a 21-year period to identify common themes using qualitative methodology. The resulting 4 themes included knowledge about men, masculinity, and socialization; therapist critical self-awareness and commitment; masculinity-informed treatment adaptations; and masculinity-informed tasks and goals. The themes were discussed in relation to relevant research and similar diversity-sensitive approaches, including different ways that masculinity knowledge was incorporated into treatment and the ethical implications of targeting traditional masculinity for change. Increased empirical research on malefriendly counseling is needed to validate existing recommendations.
This paper addresses reflective practice in research and practice and takes the issue of consciousness of social class in vocational psychology as a working example. It is argued that the discipline's appreciation of social class can be advanced through application of the qualitative research method autoethnography. Excerpts from an autoethnographic study are used to explore the method's potential. This reflexive research method is presented as a potential vehicle to improve vocational psychologists' own class consciousness, and to concomitantly enhance their capacity to grasp social class within their own spheres of research and practice. It is recommended that autoethnography be used for research, training, and professional development for vocational psychologists. addressing social class will ultimately require the delivery of career development services directed at socio-economic need and will depend upon psychological practices that are informed by research and theories sensitive to social class. Accordingly, scholars and practitioners-and their teachers and supervisors-will require various theoretical and professional means by which to take up that challenge in an appropriately informed manner.We approach this challenge by presenting a qualitative research method which can be used by vocational psychologists to raise awareness of their own social class phenomenology and to explore how they can integrate class-related meaning into reflexive research. In doing so, we present another path by which vocational psychologists may pursue the notion of critical consciousness Blustein, McWhirter, & Perry, 2005;Diemer & Blustein, 2006). Objectification of Social ClassPsychology, as a social science and a profession, has developed sophisticated systems of education, training, supervision, credentialing, and registration. Take for example the scientist-practitioner model, which embodies the notions of dispassionate objectivity, technical proficiency, and professionalism. Although we flexibly adhere to the positivist tradition and ideals of the scientist-practitioner approach in our various professional, supervisory, managerial, and academic roles, we assert that psychology's scientific and professional systems and discourses require careful consideration with respect to class. With Following the arguments of other scholars (e.g., Blustein, 2001;Lott, 2002;Richardson, 2000;Roberts, 2005) we suspect that the enculturation of vocational psychologists in the traditional positivist paradigm may inadvertently limit their capacity to fully appreciate and operationalize a sensitive view of class in research, theory, and practice.The enculturation of dispassionate objectivity concomitant with positivism may well serve the development of a scientific professional, but it may concomitantly suppress or limit a professional's understanding and expression of his or her own personal background in terms of social class. We are not suggesting that individuals who identify with the positivist tradition are necessarily dismissive...
The pervasive effects of cumulative harm resulting from adverse childhood experiences influence all aspects of an individual’s life course. Research highlights a relationship between early trauma and career choice; however, there is a dearth of research pertaining specifically to cumulative harm and the influence on career choice in the helping professions. A systematic literature review was conducted to explore the associations of cumulative harm and childhood trauma on career decision making in people in the helping professions. A search was conducted across databases between February 1990 and February 2019 relevant to searches combining three areas of interest: (a) “childhood trauma,” (b) “career choice,” and (c) “helping professionals.” Database searches and further manual searches yielded a total of 208 articles, and 28 studies satisfied all inclusion criteria. Only studies that were peer-reviewed and published between February 1990 and February 2019 were included. The evidence from the review indicated that family of origin dysfunction, parentification, individual characteristics, and traits developed through adversity, and experiential motivations were associated with the career choice in the helping professions. Further research is required to explore different professional cohorts and the utility of life themes as both a source of data for research and reflexive practice in helping professionals.
Many of the contemporary treatment recommendations and guides for adapting therapy for men originates from the context of the United States. This qualitative study invited 15 Australian therapists, who advertised themselves as working with men, to describe their recommendations for male-friendly counseling. Three themes and 14 subthemes were identified, each explained from an understanding of their male client group's experiences and common male norms. The themes included ensuring a safe space, to enact masculinityinformed respect, and to enhance client awareness and motivation. Therapists' suggestions for working with Australian men were congruent with recommendations in the existing literature, however variations were noted in how traditionally masculine or feminineconsistent their emphasis was.
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