Behind our work in career development is the wish to make life better for clients, participants, and communities. There is an implicit belief that the work we do will contribute to the quality of life of those people with whom we interact as professionals. Yet, what does it mean if we take the notion of quality of life seriously? How can we handle a concept so subjective, so basic, and so far reaching all at once? How does quality of life help us in our work as career practitioners? The aim of this chapter is to highlight the importance of...

We have laid some of the groundwork of quality of life and its relation to career development in the previous chapter, including issues of definition and background. In this chapter, quality of life will be examined in its relation to academic disciplines and according to some of the prevalent ways of knowing about it. Research has revealed a number of leading characteristics of quality of life and these will be discussed. This leads into some important considerations of methodology as a prelude to a more detailed exploration of research findings on quality of life. Research findings will be discussed under...

In Chapter 1 we saw that quality of life can be operationalized through a variety of definitions but no one definition can capture everything. There is a universe of influences on any one person. Therefore, it becomes important to further situate the discussion of quality of life. The main purpose of this chapter is to present a model of quality of life. It should be emphasized that this is only one representation of quality of life and it must be considered as a work-in-progress in the same way as the definition of quality of life. No diagram can do justice...

The concept of holism is embedded in the foundation of this book. What does holism mean? Why is it important? What does it look like in career development? What are some of its origins? What are the conceptual issues that lie within the notion of holism? What dangers lie in holism? This chapter will address these questions and thereby lay a foundation for subsequent material presented in this book such as chaos and complexity theory, community, and nature.

Quality of life as conceived in this book is a holistic concept closely related to Western notions of holism. Quality of life...

The last chapter emphasized the place of holism in a quality of life approach to career development. This chapter takes the idea of holism into the world of physics. Why would it be important to delve into physics in a discourse on quality of life and its relation to career development? There are several parts in a response to this question. Part of the answer is that new developments in physics offer corroboration to the importance of holism. First, quality of life emphasizes the wholes that make up our life and the particular balance in the pattern of the relationships...

In the model of quality of life, the community is one of the nine domains of the lifespace realm, the third ring of the model. A quality of life approach to career development involves balancing patterns of wholes in one’s life. One of the important wholes in quality of life is the notion of community. This chapter examines community and looks at the implications of it for career development. The concept of community is important to the work of career developers because the individuals who seek out employment assistance usually live within a community setting. The nature of that community...

This chapter explores nature as a critical realm of quality of life. It is the contention in this book that human existence, including quality of life, is fundamentally reliant on our associations with land and nature. What does nature have to do with quality of life? What does nature have to do with career development? How is this connection to career development related to quality of life? What are the practical implications? This chapter offers insights to begin to answer these questions.

This chapter is based on a number of key assumptions. First, it is assumed that the way we...

It has been the contention in this book that quality of life is a concept applicable to career development. It is neither too general nor too vague to use as a practitioner. A quality of life approach to career development offers a framework that conceptualizes a comprehensive pattern of relationships with which one is confronted as a career practitioner. The framework offers a handle on the complexity of relationships that surround any career intervention, raises awareness of areas of possible impact on the client, and suggests a holistic analysis of career problems. It is a starting point, not an end...