Tales of two subjects: Narratives of career counseling Gudbjörg Vilhjálmsdóttir a, * , Torfi H. Tulinius b a School of Social Sciences, School and Employment Counseling, University of Iceland, Gimli vid Saemundargotu, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland b School of Humanities, University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland article info Article history: Received 16 April 2009 Available online 30 June 2009 Keywords: Counseling relationship Narrative counseling Narrative theory Greimassian semiotics abstract Narratives, often quite complex, are at the core of subjective careers. Tools and methodol- ogy have been adapted from narratology to analyze career stories thoroughly. This article presents four career counselors’ narratives of client that have been analyzed with Greimas’ actantial model and semiotic square. This methodology proves to be of value as it brings forth the main issues with which the client and the counselor are dealing. Furthermore, it gives the counselor a means to analyze and reflect on counseling practice. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Narrative counseling follows a constructivist theory (Bujold, 2004). A major tenet of such theories in career counseling is that changed thinking and attitudes can alter subjective reality. In the narrative counseling relationship, this reality is rep- resented in the tale told by the counselee. The common task of both counselor and counselee is to interpret, reframe and reorient the counselees thinking and attitudes towards the tale (Patton & McMahon, 2006). This interpretation is a joint ven- ture involving two subjectivities, that of the counselee and the counselor. ‘‘From a narrative perspective, client and counsel- ors are partners in a dialog that aims at elaborating and improving the client’s career story” (Christensen & Johnston, 2003, p. 159). The counseling relationship involves two subjects, the client and the counselor, who are both interpreting and gaining understanding of the client’s story. The subject is indeed at the center of the constructivist approach. Looking at counselees as subjects instead of objects open to scrutiny, was a major shift in career counseling in the middle of last century and constitutes the first major influence on what has later been called constructivist career counseling (Savickas, 1997). Theoreticians like Kelly and Rogers were pioneers in this subjective viewpoint. The construing subject is central in Kelly’s theory (1955) where people continuously construe reality: ‘‘what [people] perceive may not exist, but [their] perception does” (Kelly, 1963, p. 8). Based on his theory of interpersonal knowledge, Rogers postulated that the subject of the counselor was no less a key factor in counseling than that of the counselee. He viewed the genuine and positive attitude towards the client as essential to successful counseling. Interpersonal knowing, along with subjective and objective ways of knowing are related and used intermittently, according to Rogers (1969). It was also in the middle of last century that American sociology distinguished between objective and subjective career, with the former addressing structural aspects of career within an organization (Barley, 1989). The subjective aspects of ca- reer involve the meaning an individual gives to his or her career and the sense they make of their becoming. ‘‘Subjective careers evidenced themselves in the tales people told to lend coherence to the strands of their life” (Barley, 1989, p. 49). Clients often come to counselors because their stories are not unfolding in a desirable or comprehensible way. They are in a crisis of imagination (Amundson, 2003). 0001-8791/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2009.06.008 * Corresponding author. Fax: +354 552 6806. E-mail addresses: gudvil@hi.is (G. Vilhjálmsdóttir), tht@hi.is (T.H. Tulinius). Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 267–274 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Vocational Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb