Part 2
The PIC Model:
The Role of Counselors
PIC provides a framework for a dynamic
and interactive process which emphasizes
career counselors’ role as decision
counselors, whose aim is to facilitate an
active decision-making process.
The 3 Roles of Career Counselors




Discover what stage of the career-decision
making process the individual is in currently.
Review the individual’s previous career decisionmaking stage(s), and, if needed, repeat one or
more of them.
Guide the clients through the remaining stages.
-- Thus, the model’s components can be
adapted according to the counselee’s style and
needs, and the counselor’s judgment.
All three stages of the PIC have the
similar underlying structure of a
dynamic counselor-client dialogue:

First, the counselor presents the goal of the
stage and the client’s expected role in it.

Second, the client actively participates by
providing answers to questions presented by the
counselor. The counselor uses his or her
expertise and impression of the client’s unique
personality and abilities to monitor the adequacy
of the client’s responses.

Third, the counselor discusses with the client
what occurred in the second phase and the
outcomes.
Before Beginning the Decision-Making
Process: Assessing the Client’s
Readiness
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Evaluating the client’s general level of career
indecision (e.g., Career Decision Scale),
Examining his or her specific difficulties in
reaching a decision (e.g., the Career
Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire)
Assessing career choice anxiety (e.g., Career
Factors Inventory)
Discovering dysfunctional thinking patterns in
career problem-solving and decision-making
(e.g., the Career Thoughts Inventory)
Identifying dysfunctional beliefs (e.g., the
Career Beliefs Inventory).
Career Decision-Making
Difficulties

The first step in helping individuals is to
locate the focuses of the difficulties they
face in making career decisions

Gati, Krausz, and Osipow (1996) proposed
a taxonomy for describing the difficulties
(see Figure 1)
Figure 1: Locating Career Decision-making
Difficulties based on the taxonomy of Gati,
Krausz, & Osipow (1996)
During the Process
Prior to Engaging
in the Process
Lack of Readiness
due to
Lack of
Indecimotivation siveness
Lack of Information
about
Dysfunc- Cdm Self Occupations
tional process
beliefs
Ways of
obtaining
info.
Inconsistent
Information due to
Unreliable Internal
Info.
conflicts
External
conflicts
The Career Decision-making
Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ)
The Career Decision-making Difficulties
Questionnaire (CDDQ) was developed to
test this taxonomy and serve as a means
for assessing individuals’ career decisionmaking difficulties
 Cronbach Alpha internal consistency
estimates: .70-.90 for the 3 major
categories, .95 for the total CDDQ score

Empirical Structure of the
Difficulties (N= 10,000; 2004)
Lack of motivations
Indecisiveness
Dysfunctional beliefs
Lack of info about self
Lack of info about process
LoI about occupations
LoI about addition sources of
help
Unreliable Information
Internal conflicts
External conflicts
Computerized Assessment of
Career Decision-Making Difficulties
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The CDDQ was incorporated into a careerrelated self-help-oriented free of charge Internet
site (www.cddq.org).
Research has shown that the Internet and the
paper-and-pencil versions of the CDDQ are
equivalent (Gati & Saka, 2001; Kleiman & Gati,
2004).
The CDDQ was found suitable for different
countries and cultures and has been translated
into 18 languages.
Increasing the Client’s Readiness

Dealing with general indecisiveness. Indecisiveness is a
generalized inability to make decisions. If the client’s degree of
indecisiveness appears to require a more intense and longer
intervention, the client should be referred to relevant clinical
counseling.

Dismantling dysfunctional beliefs and thoughts. Beliefs such as
“There is a perfect occupation for me” or “The counselor will find me
the right occupation” may impede the decision-making process and
lead to less than optimal career-counseling outcomes. It is therefore
important to elicit and locate the client’s dysfunctional beliefs and
dismantle them as part of the preparation phase.

Explaining the steps of the decision-making process to the
client. This includes explaining the basic rationale behind the
systematic procedure and its advantages over a haphazard choice,
describing the three stages of the PIC model, and discussing each
stage’s goal, process, and expected outcome.
(1)Prescreening the Potential
Alternatives

(a) locating the career-related aspects
that are most important to the client:
 Clients
can construct a list of relevant aspects
by themselves, based on their life experience
and aspirations.
 The client’s more important aspects can be
elicited using Kelly’s repertory grid or using
Tyler’s Vocational Card Sort
 Counselors can facilitate this step also by
presenting the client with a list of the
potentially relevant aspects
(1)Prescreening the Potential
Alternatives

(b) ranking the selected aspects by
importance
 To
help the client create a rank-order of
aspects, the counselor might ask guiding
questions, such as: “You said that
‘independence’ is the most important aspect
for you. What aspect would you regard as
second in importance?”
(1)Prescreening the Potential
Alternatives

(c) defining the compromise range for
each of the selected aspects
 The
counselor is expected to encourage the
client to locate and report his or her optimal
preferences, yet also to consider
compromising on within-aspect levels.
 For example: “You said that for the aspect
‘length of training’ your optimal level would be
a 2-year college program. Would you be
willing to compromise and regard a 4-year
college program as acceptable as well?”
(1)Prescreening the Potential
Alternatives

(d) Sequential Elimination: comparing the
individual’s preferences with the alternatives’
characteristics
 Provide
the client with feedback, including examples
of the eliminated options in each aspect.
 For example: “With respect to the aspect ‘length of
training’, the following occupations are incompatible
with your preference for a 2-year or 4-year college
program: medicine, psychology, law ...”.
 Using computerized systems such as CHOICES,
DISCOVER, and MBCD (Making Better Career
Decisions (http://mbcd.intocareers.org) can help
provide such feedback.
(1)Prescreening the Potential
Alternatives

(e) Testing the sensitivity of the results to possible
changes in preferences



Checking whether the reported preferences still seem
acceptable: “Are you certain that you are not willing to consider
graduate studies?”
Understanding why certain alternatives, which were considered
intuitively appealing by the client before the systematic search,
were eliminated: “High-school teaching was eliminated from your
list because it is incompatible with your preferences for a very
high income, high flexibility in working hours, and short training.”
Locating alternatives that are ‘almost promising’ – examining
the validity of the information about the critical aspect and
considering the possibility of compromising in that aspect: “Your
wish to use only ‘high artistic ability’ at work led to the elimination
of several occupations which are compatible with your
preferences in all the other important aspects. Would you like to
also consider occupations requiring moderate artistic ability,
while expressing your artistic skills in avocational activities?”
(1)Prescreening the Potential
Alternatives
Helping explicating preferences
 If at any point during the prescreening the client has
difficulties in explicating his or her preferences, the
counselor can help by directing the client to relevant past
experiences and the client’s emotional reactions to those
experiences
For example, if the client is unsure whether “teamwork”
is an important aspect for her, or how willing she is to
compromise on this aspect, the counselor may help elicit
memories of participation on school committees or in
youth organizations, and the emotions associated with
them.
(2) In-depth Exploration of the
Promising Alternatives
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Verify compatibility of the alternative with the client’s
preferences in the most important aspects (e.g., a person who
works in one of the considered occupations may mention that
she is given much independence in choosing both “what to do”
and “how to do it”)
Consider the compatibility of the alternative with the client’s
preferences in the less important aspects as well. The client
may consider going through the prescreening process again,
based on revised preferences
See whether he or she is willing to meet the requirements
specified by the core aspects
Examine the probability of actualizing the alternative,
explore possible ways of increasing the probability of
actualizing certain promising alternatives with the counselor
(3) Choosing the Most Suitable
Alternative

(a) Comparing and evaluating the suitable
alternatives



clients can make approximate, “local” comparisons of the various
alternatives’ advantages by combining some characteristics of
one alternative that are equivalent to some combination of
characteristics of the other.
For example, the advantage of alternative x over y in terms of
expected higher income may be roughly equivalent to the
advantage of alternative y in terms of better work environment
and higher variety.
(b) Selecting additional suitable alternatives
(3) Choosing the Most Suitable
Alternative

(c) Reflecting on the decision-making process.


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The implementation of the decision is liable to be delayed or
avoided if the client does not truly feel certain in the decision.
Counselors can help clients locate the source of their lack of
confidence and discrepancies between intuition and systematic
processing, and then either confirm their decision or reach a
different one.
If the counselor feels that the systematic process has led to an
optimal decision, but various emotional factors (e.g., fear of
commitment, anxiety, low self-esteem, lack of motivation etc.)
deter the client from following through with implementation, the
client and counselor should engage collaboratively in cognitive
restructuring, affective regulation and stress management.
(4) Completing the Decision-Making Process:
Implementing the steps that need to be carried out in order to
actualize the client’s chosen alternative
Identifying the Client’s Stage in
the Process


It is possible to start the PIC process from “the
middle” – according to the client’s needs
However, it is recommended to start the process
from the beginning, in order to:
 Strengthen
confidence in the occupational
alternatives considered by the client
 Eliminate inadequate alternatives considered by the
client
 Offer additional alternatives that were not considered
by the client so far
 Teach decisions skills: aspect-based instead of
occupation-based approach
Concluding Remarks

The PIC model is flexible and dynamic: it allows
clients to move back and forth in the decisionmaking process

The PIC model constitutes a framework for a
decision-making process that allows clients to
play not only an active role but a leading one

Informal reports of career counselors suggest
that they often, implicitly and intuitively, use a
PIC-like, three-stage approach in relevant career
counseling cases
Still…

Career decision-making requires collecting a vast amount of
information

Complex information-processing is needed

But luckily, information and communication technologies are
available

More and more career counselors incorporate the use of one
or more Computer-Assisted Career Guidance Systems, or an
Internet version of such systems, into the face-to-face career
counseling process

The use of an Internet-based career-guidance system for the
clinical implementation of the PIC model will be demonstrated
in the next part of the workshop