Career Work And Mental Health

Individuals seeking career counseling often present with a complex array of issues, and thus it is often difficult for counselors to separate career satisfaction and development from other mental health issues. Career, Work, and Mental Health examines this tightly woven connection between mental health issues and career development and offers practical ways for counselors to blend career and personal counseling. Taking this integrative approach, author Vernon Zunker offers step-by-step procedures for delivering effective intervention strategies – tactics that are meaningful and relevant to career choice, career development, and the interconnectedness of personal problems.

This book makes the case that career development practice is a mental health intervention, and provides skills and strategies to support career development practitioners in their work. It explores how practitioners do more than help people navigate career paths, they change people's lives in ways that improve mental health and overall well-being.

This text integrates career counselling/development with mental health counselling. The book builds on the growing recognition that career counselling cannot be viewed in isolation of mental health issues, an individual needs to be viewed as a whole person whose psyche and mental health are delicately intertwined.

Accessible and unbiased, Careers in Mental Health introduces upper-level high school students and beginning undergraduates to the different aspects of various mental health professions. Contains essential career advice for anyone considering an advanced degree in one of the “helping” professions within mental health Covers clinical psychology, counseling psychology, social work, counseling, marriage and family therapy, substance abuse counseling, and school psychology Clarifies the distinctions between professions by discussing the history and philosophy of each field, requirements for advanced education, licensing, available jobs, salary potential, and more Includes a section with practical information applicable to all the professions, such as characteristics for success, ethical issues, the importance of critical thinking, applying to graduate school, and current issues affecting the field of mental health

Our jobs are often a big part of our identities, and when we are fired, we can feel confused, hurt, and powerless—at sea in terms of who we are. Drawing on extensive, real-life interviews, Job Loss, Identity, and Mental Health shines a light on the experiences of unemployed, middle-class professional men and women, showing how job loss can affect both identity and mental health. Sociologist Dawn R. Norris uses in-depth interviews to offer insight into the experience of losing a job—what it means for daily life, how the unemployed feel about it, and the process they go through as they try to deal with job loss and their new identities as unemployed people. Norris highlights several specific challenges to identity that can occur. For instance, the way other people interact with the unemployed either helps them feel sure about who they are, or leads them to question their identities. Another identity threat happens when the unemployed no longer feel they are the same person they used to be. Norris also examines the importance of the subjective meaning people give to statuses, along with the strong influence of society’s expectations. For example, men in Norris’s study often used the stereotype of the “male breadwinner” to define who they were. Job Loss, Identity, and Mental Health describes various strategies to cope with identity loss, including “shifting” away from a work-related identity and instead emphasizing a nonwork identity (such as “a parent”), or conversely “sustaining” a work-related identity even though he or she is actually unemployed. Finally, Norris explores the social factors—often out of the control of unemployed people—that make these strategies possible or impossible. A compelling portrait of a little-studied aspect of the Great Recession, Job Loss, Identity, and Mental Health is filled with insight into the identity crises that unemployment can trigger, as well as strategies to help the unemployed maintain their mental strength.

This text integrates career counselling/development with mental health counselling. The book builds on the growing recognition that career counselling cannot be viewed in isolation of mental health issues, an individual needs to be viewed as a whole person whose psyche and mental health are delicately intertwined.

"Many people are interested in pursuing a career in mental health but may be uncertain about career options. This book helps to identify the best educational path for their interests and prepare for success. Throughout, mental health professionals share inspiring wisdom to build realistic expectations and highlight key decision points. Comprehensive information about the disciplines of counseling, marital/couples and family therapy, psychology, psychiatry, psychiatric nursing, and social work is provided, along with an expansive array of job possibilities. Practical guidance about masters versus doctoral degrees, graduate admissions success, educational costs, and salary projections is offered. Readers learn about how diversity and inclusion issues, as well as laws and ethics impact mental health, and how to prevent career burnout. Thought-provoking chapters promote balanced respect for both the healing art and the science of mental health, and forecast innovations that will shape the field into the future. Finally, multimedia resources are recommended to boost career preparedness"--

In this original and major new work, David Blustein places working at the same level of attention for social and behavioral scientists and psychotherapists as other major life concerns, such as intimate relationships, physical and mental health, and socio-economic inequities. He also provides readers with an expanded conceptual framework within which to think about working in human development and human experience. As a result, this creative new synthesis enriches the discourse on working across the broad spectrum of psychology's concerns and agendas, and especially for those readers in career development, counseling, and policy-related fields. This textbook is ideal for use in graduate courses on counseling and work or vocational counseling.