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Once you have hope – you become more active

“Learning about possibilities in the labour market is good and necessary but for the clients
of guidance practitioners, it is not sufficient. They need to learn about themselves, to iden-
tify their strengths and they need hope. Once you have hope, you become more active and
you strive further. You need to feel that your efforts will bring some results and that you
yourself are worth something. The result is lack of direction and purpose. With different
types of activities, guidance practitioners can inspire hope and purpose”.

Dr. Norman Amundson recently alise which options to take. Tell-
gave a course on what he calls ing stories, drawing pictures, and
a hope-centred, activity engaged maybe most importantly, using
approach in Reykjavík, Iceland metaphors to describe one’s own
(supported by the Icelandic Euro- feelings and aspirations are good
guidance Centre) and granted a ways to engage the client and in-
short interview for Insight. spire hope for the future.

Dr Amundson is a Professor
in Counselling Psychology at
the University of British Colum-
bia, Canada and also a found- and adapting are the petals of a
ing member of the Hope-Action flower turning around the centre of
Group with Dr Spencer Niles and hope. The environment is the little
Dr Hyung Joon Yoon. In his writ- gust of wind which is necessary to
ings, he emphasizes the impor- move the petals around the core.
tance of creativity, imagination, Counsellors can thus be one of
cultural awareness, positive affir- the factors making the wheel turn. Dr Amundson admitted that he ini-
mation, hope and active engage- tially was not a great believer in
ment. His most recent publication Counsellors need to be active, distance guidance. Now he has
(2018) is a twenty year anniversa- greet their clients at the door come to believe that in a rapidly
ry edition of Active Engagement. and help them through various changing world guidance coun-
His publications include over 100 activities in order to get a better sellors need to adapt to the world
journal articles, training DVDs, idea of where they want to go of social media and learn to com-
books and workbooks – many of and how they can possibly get municate with their clients in this
which have been translated into there. One method is to walk the modality. His most recent research
different languages. problem where the client visua- project discusses the effective-
lises where (s)he wants to be in ness of both face-to-face and on-
In the course in Reykjavík, he the future. Another method is for line career counselling interven-
talked his audience through the client to sit in different chairs tions with unemployed clients.
the pinwheel where hope forms in turn and visualise the future,
the centre and self-reflection, where each chair represents a
self-clarity, visioning, goal-setting different future possibility, there- Dóra Stefánsdóttir
and planning, and implementing by allowing the client to better re- Euroguidance Iceland