Psychoanalytic Theory on Career Choice – 5 Factors

The psychoanalytic theory views career choice in terms of the individual and how he/she operates in isolation in the choice of his career. Basically, the system of psychoanalysis involves the mechanism of sublimation which provides an acceptable way for an individual to release portions of his psychic energies that would be unacceptable to society if expressed directly. Work is ideally suited to provide outlet for sublimated wishes and impulses. Considering the psychotherapeutic role of work, it has been suggested that some psychological factors aid in vocational choice.

In the process of rechannelling of unacceptable behaviour to acceptable one, for example, a person who is childless and love children may take up jobs like nursing, while an individual who likes power and authority may take up a job that will enable him apply such trait in a socially acceptable way such as politics.

Brill (1949) is of the view that sublimation is intimately linked with vocational choice, that the particular vocation an individual chooses is not the result of an accidental arrangement of events. Rather, an individual’s personality and impulses lead him to choose a career in which he may satisfy his basic life impulses. Sadistic impulses may be satisfied by engaging in socially acceptable such as becoming a butcher or a surgeon.

Reality and pleasure principle:

According to the psychoanalytic theory, individuals combine the pleasure and reality principles in vocational selection. The pleasure principle drives an individual to behave in a manner that is immediately gratifying, forgetful of the future consequences of his/her actions. The pleasure principles is at work when one wants a better pay when he/she does something because he/she enjoys it and derives some pleasure from it or when he/she is involved in a particular job to please someone. The reality principle focuses attention on eventual and long-term gratification at the expense of the immediate reward.

The reality point of view deals with the hard facts of the job as they apply to the individual. For instance, job hazards are considered. Ideally, the individuals’ choice of a vocation should be based on both principles such that he/she gets some immediate satisfaction as a consequence of his/her choice of career while at the same time he/she lays the foundation for future success.

Fantasy

In psychoanalytic theory approach, fantasy means the ability to pretend about things that do not exist as if they are in existence. When people pretend to do jobs they are suited for, they always talk about the good aspects of the job. Summers (1956) links fantasy with identification, in which case a person may choose a particular career because he/she has identified a particular career with somebody he/she does not like, even though he/she has the aptitude for such a job, he may not go into it.

Mastery Instinct

This is the innate tendency in every individual to excel in the work he/she has chosen to do. Hendrick (1943) postulates that work pleasure represents gratification of the mastery instinct. Work mastery gives one work satisfaction and this in turn satisfies the ego.

For example, if an individual chooses a job he/she likes best, the mastery instinct will make him/her attempt to control or change some portion of his/her environment through the combined uses of his intellectual and neurological processes. The mastery instinct makes an individual to integrate his/her behaviour and develop skill in performing certain tasks to which he/she applies all his/her strength and aims at the best.

Fear of Success/Failure

The existence of any of these in an individual may result in failure. Some people choose jobs as a result of societal expectations attached to such jobs. Because of these, they either overwork themselves or overestimate their ability and the result may be devastating.

For example, women are very anxious and sensitive about getting-on successfully in their chosen career because they want to excel. Many of them may engage in occupations they cannot maintain and fail in the process. Men are very sensitive about failing in life so they strive hard not to be termed failures by their wives, children, relations and the society.

This fear may also drive some into career they may not have aptitude for. When the tension is too much for them to handle, they can become frustrated. Malnig (1967) has developed a psychoanalytic interpretation of the failure to achieve well in school with the possibility that one’s achievement might surpass those of his father, is frightening to some people since parental reprisal might result. So, besides the fear of success and the fear of failure as motivators for vocational choice, there may be the fear of loss of affection.

Oedipus Complex

In light of the psychoanalytic theory, sometimes an individual may choose a career because he is influenced by an opposite-sex he likes. Crites (1962) says:

• that development through life stages can be guided, partly by facilitating the process of maturation of abilities and interests, and partly by aiding in reality testing and in the development of the self-concept that the process of vocational development is essentially that of development and implementing a self-concept; it is a compromise process in which the self-concept is a product of the interaction of inherited aptitudes and environmental conditions.
• That a child develops and as his range of experience widens, he begins to find that he is both like and unlike other people, and he begins to realise that he is a distinct person in his own right.
• That the process of compromise between individual and social factors, between self-concept and reality, is one of role-playing, whether the role is played in fantasy, in the counselling interview, or in real-life activities such as school classes, clubs, part-time work, and entry jobs.
• That work and life satisfaction depend upon the extent to which the individual finds adequate outlets for his abilities, interest, personality trait, and values; they depend upon his establishment in a type of work, a role which his growth and exploratory experiences have led him to consider congenial and appropriate.

The implications of the psychoanalytic theory for the vocational counselling.

In order to define appropriate vocational counselling goal for an individual, his/her life must be appraised and his/her degree of vocational maturity assessed.

Clarification on the self-concept with one’s life stage may point to inadequate information or even misinformation that can be charged by systematically exposing the counsellor to appropriate experience that will allow the modification and implementation of the self-concept procedures to be used by the counsellor could be non-directive counselling technique making use of vocational appraisal, collecting occupational information directly from the community and relating occupations with training situation to facilitate appropriate decision making.