CHAPTER 4
Life‐Span, Life‐Space Career Theory and Counseling

PAUL J. HARTUNG

Department of Family and Community Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Rootstown, OH

There is no “Super's theory”; there is just the assemblage of theories that I have sought to synthesize.

D. E. Super (1990, p. 199)

Source: From Super, D. E. (1990). A life‐span, life‐space approach to career development. In D. Brown & L. Brooks (Eds.), Career choice and development: Applying contemporary theories to practice (2nd ed., pp. 197–261). San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.

Life‐span, life‐space career theory and counseling focus on the content, process, and outcomes of career choice and development throughout the human life course (Super, 1953, 1957, 1990; Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996). The theory views career choice and development in three ways: (a) as movement over time through discrete developmental stages with accompanying developmental tasks that constitute the life span, (b) as arrangement of worker and other roles that constitute the psychosocial life space wherein people design their lives, and (c) as implementation of self‐concept in work roles. Across the life span and within the life space, individuals develop a sense of self in contexts of time and space. In this way, life‐span, life‐space theory comprises a creative synthesis of ideas and evidence culled from seemingly disparate theories and lines of research assembled along three primary segments: (a) the longitudinal or chronological, developmental life span; (b) the latitudinal or contextual, psychosocial life space; and (c) the self and self‐concepts. With development and psychosocial roles principal among its segments, the theory describes vocational behavior as fluid, dynamic, continuous, and contextual.

Offering a segmented differential–developmental social phenomenological perspective on vocational behavior (Super, 1994), life‐span, life‐space theory also spawned a proven model and practical methods for career education and counseling (Healy, 1982; Super, 1983; Super et al., 1996). Counselors can use this model and its methods to assist children, adolescents, and adults with learning the attitudes, beliefs, and competencies necessary for successful career planning, exploration, decision‐making, and choice (Savickas, 2005, 2019; Super, 1983). Today, without question, life‐span, life‐space theory ranks, along with the theory of vocational personalities and work environments (Holland, 1997; Nauta, Chapter 3, this volume), as one of the two most influential, empirically supported, and widely applied of the foundational theories of career choice and development. Meanwhile, social cognitive career theory (Lent, Chapter 5, this volume) and career construction theory (Savickas, Chapter 6 this volume) have gained considerable prominence during the first two decades of the twenty‐first century and take their places alongside Holland's (1997) and Super's (1990) theories and practice models.

To fully understand the breadth and depth of vocational behavior and career development, career practitioners can benefit from knowing and possessing the ability to apply the principles and practice of life‐span, life‐space theory in service of diverse client populations. Toward that end, this chapter describes the historical background, core principles, practical applications, and research findings in support of life‐span, life‐space career theory and counseling. The chapter overviews and updates knowledge about and use of the theory to provide both retrospective and prospective understanding. Readers interested in further study would do especially well to consult the original (Super, 1953, 1957), penultimate (Super, 1990) and final (Super, 1994; Super et al., 1996) statements of the theory by its progenitor and prime architect, the late Professor Donald E. Super.

BACKGROUND OF THE THEORY

“…what I have contributed is…a ‘segmental theory’…dealing with specific aspects of career development taken from developmental, differential, social, personality, and phenomenological psychology and held together by self‐concept and learning theory.” (Super, 1990, p. 199).

The life‐span, life‐space approach to career development and practice resulted from the work of Donald E. Super (for a biography, see Savickas, 1994). Super (1953) first articulated a theory of vocational development over 60 years ago. Name changes from the original “career development theory” to “developmental self‐concept theory” and finally to “life‐span, life‐space theory” reflect the theory's evolution over this period (Savickas, 1997). Throughout this time, Super combined in one grand theory the fruits of existing research and his own empirical and conceptual work in three main areas: differential psychology, developmental psychology, and self‐concept theory (for complete compendia of historical antecedents, see Savickas, 2007; Super, 1990, 1994). These three areas form the keystone segments of the theory.

DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Prior to 1950, the paradigm for comprehending vocational behavior focused solely on the content of occupational choice from the objective perspective of individual differences. The individual differences, or person–environment (P–E) fit, perspective advanced a psychology of occupations that assumed satisfaction and success resulted from a harmonious person–occupation match. Near mid‐twentieth century, this perspective found its embodiment in a classic textbook that delineated psychological traits affecting vocational choice and classified occupational fields and levels structuring the world of work (Roe, 1956). By concentrating on what occupations individuals select, the three‐part matching model of self‐knowledge, occupational knowledge, and true reasoning between these two types of knowledge (Parsons, 1909) provided counselors with an understanding of vocational choices and an intervention scheme for fitting people to jobs in accordance with their unique interests, abilities, personalities, and other traits. This intervention scheme relied on using psychological tests and inventories coupled with occupational information to match people to jobs.

Applied to vocational behavior, differential psychology asserts that particular occupations suit particular types of people. In The Republic, Plato (360 BC) captured this view long ago by commenting that “No two persons are born exactly alike; but each differs from the other in natural endowments, one being suited for one occupation and the other for another.” Today, the matching model, best exemplified in Holland's (1997, Nauta, Chapter 3 in this volume) preeminent theory and the theory of work adjustment by Dawis and Lofquist (1984), continues to inform the practice of career intervention whereby counselors help individuals to match themselves to jobs.

Advancing the matching model and reflecting his background as a differential psychologist, Super authored two books. In the first volume, Super (1942) synthesized existing knowledge about the practice of vocational guidance in the individual differences tradition and initially described his views on career choice as a developmental process. In the second book, Super (1949) compiled and interpreted research findings about the most prevalent psychological tests then used in vocational guidance to teach readers how to evaluate and use such tests themselves. Later, in life‐span, life‐space theory, Super (1980) adopted differential psychology to explain the content of occupational choice as a match between self and situation. He also used individual differences methods to develop psychometric inventories and scales to operationally define key constructs of his theory for use in research and practice.

Super's (1994) self‐analysis of his more than 50‐year publication record revealed his foundation in differential psychology that anchors life‐span, life‐space theory and counseling. This supported an earlier conclusion: “Super has never repudiated the differential approach; in fact, in many ways he led it” (Borgen, 1991, p. 284). Notable among his many contributions to differential career psychology, Super (1957; Zytowski, 1994), along with Lofquist and Dawis (1978), advanced work values as traits useful in vocational appraisal and guidance. Work values denote important satisfactions people seek both through the nature of the work that they do (i.e., intrinsic values such as autonomy and intellectual challenge) and through the outcomes that can be obtained from work (i.e., extrinsic values such as money and prestige). Super developed the Work Values Inventory (Super, 1970; Zytowski, 2009) and Values Scale (VS) (Super & Nevill, 1985b) to measure work values in counseling and research settings (see Rounds & Leuty, Chapter 16, this volume and Stoltz & Barclay, 2019 for a discussion of work values assessment).

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

By the mid‐twentieth century, two phenomena stimulated emergence of a second paradigm to augment the matching model for vocational guidance. Unique to the growing profession of vocational guidance, one phenomenon involved increasing awareness of the lack of theory to guide practice (Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad, & Herma, 1951). A second, more widespread phenomenon concerned the shift within the United States, as well as in other countries, from an agrarian to a predominantly industrial and organizational society (Savickas & Baker, 2005). As individuals encountered increasingly complex organizational work contexts, the need arose to comprehend the process of occupational choice from the subjective perspective of the developing person. Beginning with his 1942 book, then in his 1952 presidential address to the Division of Counseling and Guidance (American Psychological Association), and then in his 1957 book, Super advanced a developmentally oriented psychology of careers.

By concentrating on how individuals move through a sequence of occupations, jobs, and positions in a career, Super (1953) offered a developmental theory of vocational behavior containing 10 propositions that increased to 14 in the theory's later statement (Super et al., 1996). In so doing, he followed the lead of Ginzberg et al. (1951) whose earlier groundbreaking developmental theory of vocational choice “prompted an explosion of career theories; almost one theory per year … for the next 20 years” (Savickas & Baker, 2005, p. 42). Super's (1942, 1949, 1957) syntheses of the existing literature, his 20‐year longitudinal study of 100 ninth graders in the career pattern study (Super, 1985), and his development of psychometric scales (e.g., Super, 1955, 1970; Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Jordaan, & Myers, 1979, 1988) supplied the foundational principles and constructs, mechanisms for empirical support, and applications of the theory. Primary among its core constructs, the theory advanced the concept of career maturity (Super, 1955) as an individual's readiness to cope with developmental career stage tasks. Subsequent theorizing would aptly replace the biological construct of career maturity with the psychosocial construct of career adaptability (Hartung & Cadaret, 2017; Savickas, 1997; Super & Knasel, 1981).

Developmental career theory and the life‐span, life‐space approach as its chief exemplar augmented the individual differences perspective and matching model for vocational guidance. It did so by explaining the subjective processes of occupational exploration, choice, entry, and adjustment among individuals within contexts that offered mobility up organizational ladders. The developmental view along with social role theory explained how individuals manage worker and other roles over the life span and propagated the superordinate construct of career to denote “the sequence of occupations, jobs, and positions occupied during the course of a person's working life” (Super, 1963, p. 3). Whereas differential psychology focused interest on what traits fit individuals for what occupations, developmental psychology placed concern on how the individual cultivates a career over time. Holland (1959, 1997) worked to articulate what would become the prototypical P–E fit theory in the differential psychology of occupations. Meanwhile, Super (1957, 1990) explicated what would become the quintessential life span theory in the developmental psychology of careers. As a segmental theorist taking components from different theories, Super always remained true to incorporating knowledge and concepts from multiple areas, including P–E fit, life span development, social learning, self‐concept, and psychodynamic perspectives (Super, 1994).

Life‐span, life‐space theory eventually produced practical models and materials for assisting individuals across developmental age periods to learn the planning attitudes, beliefs, and decision‐making competencies needed to make suitable and satisfying educational and occupational choices and to manage their careers over the life course (Healy, 1982; Super, 1983). What may be called the managing model of career education, then, offered counselors a scheme for assisting people to ready themselves to make career decisions and fit work into their lives (Savickas, 2019). The managing model and its methods of career education and counseling supported the matching model and its methods of vocational guidance by focusing on preparing people to make effective occupational choices. The view on career management as interplay between individual and organization involving “multipoint decision‐making in time and space” (Hoekstra, 2011, p. 161) clearly reflects life‐span, life‐space theory.

Infusion of the developmental perspective via life‐span, life‐space theory spread roots deep and wide, moving the field of vocational psychology and the profession of counseling from a solely matchmaking, vocational guidance perspective to a managing, career development perspective. The continuing vigor of this perspective found embodiment some years ago in Jepsen's (1984) assertion that “Nearly all vocational behavior theorists and researchers seem to subscribe to some variation of the developmental viewpoint” (p. 178). As prime evidence, Holland (1959, 1973, 1997) attended substantially, if incompletely (Bordin, 1959), to the role of development in vocational behavior. Dawis (1996), too, in the theory of work adjustment described career development as “the unfolding of capabilities and requirements in the course of a person's interaction with environments of various kinds (home, school, play, work) across the life span” (p. 94). Following suit, many other career theories including those described in this volume attend to developmental processes. Predominance of the developmental perspective also prompted the National Vocational Guidance Association in 1985 to rename itself the National Career Development Association—a designation that remains today (Chung, 2008). Likewise, many career courses in graduate‐level counseling and psychology programs across the United States and in other nations include the words career development in their titles.

SELF‐CONCEPT THEORY

Along with differential and developmental psychology, Super used self‐concept theory (Super, Starishevsky, Matlin, & Jordaan, 1963) as a third keystone to frame life‐span, life‐space theory. Drawing from the work of theorists such as Carl Rogers (1951), Super recognized that self‐concept theory could help bind the seemingly disparate differential and developmental perspectives on human behavior into a cohesive, more robust explanation of vocational behavior and its development. Self‐concept theory explains how individuals develop ideas about who they are in different roles and situations based on self‐observations of their own unique personal characteristics and experiences, as well as on social interactions and feedback from others. As Super et al. (1963) explained, “the concept of self is generally a picture of the self in some role, some situation, in a position, performing some set of functions, or in some web of relationships” (p. 18). For example, a person organizes his/her conception of himself/herself as physically muscular, agile, and fast into the role self‐concept of athlete. The content and outcomes of occupational choice, then, emerge as a function of individuals' attempts to implement their self‐concepts in work roles (Super, 1957; Super et al., 1963).

Self‐concepts refer to mental representations of self (Savickas, 2011a; Super et al., 1996). As such, self‐concepts by their very nature form individuals' subjectively held perspectives on the self in a role. With regard to occupational choice and work adjustment, the self per se may be viewed from both objective and subjective perspectives. Psychometric test and inventory data allow counselors and researchers to view the self as an object by counting and categorizing vocational interests, abilities, and other traits that form a personality. These traits yield an occupational (Blustein, Devenis, & Kidney, 1989) or vocational (Savickas, 1985) identity whereby individuals may be held up as objects to be matched to occupations that fit their particular characteristics. Objectively implementing a self‐concept in a work role involves a process akin to P–E fit in the differential tradition. By experiencing the self as an object, individuals in effect declare, “This is me.”

Alternatively, self‐estimates of traits such as interests and abilities allow counselors and researchers to view the self as a subject by attending to the totality of an individual's unique experience or personhood. The whole of an individual's experience forms an occupational self‐concept constituting life themes and the purpose work holds for oneself. Subjectively implementing a self‐concept in a work role involves purposefully fitting work into a constellation of life roles in the developmental tradition. Experiencing self as subject, an individual in effect states, “I shape me.” Combined, objective and subjective views on the self provide a lens for viewing how individuals publicly declare and privately construe the content and outcomes of their vocational behaviors, developmental statuses, and life roles (Super et al., 1996).

Life‐span, life‐space theory underscores the point that individuals develop not just one but rather constellations of self‐concepts, or ideas about themselves, based on experiences in a wide array of life spheres. The primary concern within life‐span, life‐space theory, of course, is the vocational sphere wherein the individual rests at the center of career choice, development, and decision‐making. The individual as decider and constructor of perspectives on herself or himself attempts to implement a vocational self‐concept in an occupational choice. Constructing a self‐concept with regard to the work role involves a subjective process of making meaning of the objective content of one's lived experiences, personal characteristics, and social situation. Then, individuals use realism and reality testing to evaluate how well their chosen work roles incorporate their self‐concepts in a continuing process of improving the match between self and situation.

FIGURE 4.1 The archway of career determinants.

Source: From D. E. Super (1990). A life‐span, life‐space approach to career development. In D. Brown (Ed.), Career Choice and Development (2nd ed., p. 200). San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Reprinted with permission from Jossey‐Bass.

The Archway of Career Determinants (Super, 1990) seen in Figure 4.1 delineates a unique architecture of self and self‐concept development and visually models the personal and situational factors that shape life‐span, life‐space development. The two columns comprise

various psychological characteristics and social forces depicted as stones within each column. In theory, these personal and situational factors affect the life–career arch that sits atop the two columns. Developmental stages of childhood and adolescence form the left end of the arch. Adulthood and senescence stages form the right end of the arch. In between rest self‐concepts in roles such as child, student, and worker with the self as decision maker. The dynamic interplay between and among personal traits of the left‐hand column and environmental factors of the right‐hand column determines important vocational outcomes in terms of movement through developmental stages, development of role self‐concepts, and self‐construction.

Super suggested that self‐concept theory might be better replaced by personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955) to account for how individuals make occupational choices based on their own “personal assessments of the changing socioeconomic situation and of the social structure in which they live and function” (Super, 1990, p. 223). Using the language of personal constructs, Super believed, would move from self‐concept theory as “essentially a matching theory” (p. 222) to a more social psychological conceptualization. Ultimately, self‐concept theory within the life‐span, life‐space approach melds the individual differences and individual development perspectives to describe self‐concepts as comprising objective and subjective self‐views.

SUMMARY

By combining the three keystones of differential psychology, developmental psychology, and self‐concept theory, the life‐span, life‐space approach focuses:

on the differential psychology of occupations as contributory to a psychology of careers, on life stages and processes in vocational development, on patterns of career development, on the nature and causes of vocational maturity and its role in choice and adjustment, and on the individual as the synthesizer of personal data, the interpreter of experience, and the maker of decisions (Super, 1969, p. 2).

These foundational emphases form the blueprints for configuring and comprehending the core principles of the theory.

CORE PRINCIPLES

Set against the backdrop of individual differences, individual development, and self‐concepts, life‐span, life‐space theory organizes its core propositions and principles along two primary dimensions: chronological time and contextual space (for a list of the theory's 14 propositions, see Super et al., 1996). The life–career rainbow seen in Figure 4.2 depicts the theory's two dimensions along which a vocational self‐concept is developed, implemented, and adjusted. The theory's longitudinal time dimension, portrayed in the outer arcs of the rainbow, concerns the successful traversing of developmental career stages and associated tasks and transitions over the human life span from childhood through late adulthood. The theory's latitudinal space dimension, portrayed in the inner arcs of the rainbow, concerns the meaningful design of psychosocial roles within the life space along with the situations that individuals confront within these roles. Together, the longitudinal and latitudinal dimensions of the theory mark the coordinates by which individuals chart their careers over the life span and within the life space.

FIGURE 4.2 The life–career rainbow: six life roles in schematic life space.

Source: From D. E. Super (1990). A life‐span, life‐space approach to career development. In D. Brown (Ed.), Career Choice and Development (2nd ed., p. 200). San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Reprinted with permission from Jossey‐Bass.

LIFE SPAN: TRAVERSING CAREER STAGES, TASKS, AND TRANSITIONS

Human life follows a definite developmental sequence from conception to death, from womb to tomb. Every life begins at one point in time and ends at another in a prototypical way. Yet, the unique interactions of self and situation yield substantial individual variability within this sequence. Careers, too, begin and end in a chronological, developmental progression beginning in childhood vocational aspirations and ending in late adulthood superannuation. As with general human development, each individual career proceeds in its own unique way, following or diverting from the prototypical linear sequence of exploration, choice, entry, adjustment, and retirement. Careers may thus form stable, unstable, and multiple trial patterns. The life‐span segment of life‐span, life‐space theory deals with the linear and nonlinear progression of careers over the life course in terms of developing, implementing, and stabilizing self‐concepts in work and other roles (Super, 1990; Super et al., 1996).

Five developmental periods demarcate the stages of a career depicted in Figure 4.2. The childhood stage of career growth begins the cycle that proceeds through adolescent career exploration, young adult career establishment, middle adult career maintenance (or management, see Hoekstra, 2011; Savickas, 2002), and late adult career disengagement. Each career stage presents discernible developmental tasks (or substages) that entail a primary adaptive goal. Developmental tasks convey socially and culturally expected responsibilities that individuals must meet with regard to developing a career. Completing all tasks associated with each stage builds a foundation for future success and reduces the likelihood of difficulties in later stages (Super et al., 1996). The ladder model of life–career stages and tasks in Figure 4.3 depicts the prototypical sequence of career development. The Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) (Super et al., 1988; www.vocopher.com) provides counselors with a measure of exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement stages and tasks. In a prototypical linear pattern, each career stage constitutes approximate chronological ages and characteristic tasks that combine to form a “grand narrative” (Super et al., 1996, p. 135) about vocational development.

Growth.  The career development grand narrative begins in childhood (Hartung, 2017; Hartung, Porfeli, & Vondracek, 2005) with the life stage of growth. Spanning birth to age 13, this opening developmental period concentrates on the goal of forming an initial and realistic vocational self‐concept in part by identifying with significant others. The budding vocational self‐concept reflects the child's formative answer to the question “Who am I?” in a mental representation of personal strengths, limitations, interests, values, abilities, talents, and personality traits. This self‐concept contains the child's public picture and private purpose about the future role of work in his or her life. Society expects that opportunities and experiences afforded at home, play, and school will arouse the child's curiosities, fantasies, interests, and capacities to construct a future possible self to be realized in work and other social roles. Growth substages (or developmental tasks) for children (and adults revisiting growth) comprise developing concern about the future, control over decision‐making, conviction to achieve, and competence in work habits and attitudes (Savickas & Super, 1993). Children must learn to imagine, be self‐responsible, and problem‐solve in order to construct a viable work future consistent with cultural imperatives conveyed in family and community contexts. The developmental tasks of career growth compel the child to acquire a future orientation characterized by the ability to planfully look ahead (Savickas, 1997; Super et al., 1996). A critical element in this process involves envisioning oneself in work and other roles and comprehending the relative salience, or importance, of these roles in one's life.

FIGURE 4.3 The ladder model of life–career stages and developmental tasks.

Source: From D. E. Super (1990). A life‐span, life‐space approach to career development. In D. Brown (Ed.), Career Choice and Development (2nd ed., p. 200). San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Reprinted with permission from Jossey‐Bass.

Exploration.  Childhood career growth eventually gives way to new developmental tasks associated with the ensuing life stage of exploration. Encompassing ages 14– 24, exploration focuses the adolescent and emerging adult (Arnett, 2004) on the goal of crystallizing, specifying, and implementing the vocational self‐concept in an occupational role. Crystallizing means developing a clear and stable vocational self‐concept reflecting one's preferences for occupational fields and ability levels. Specifying educational and vocational choices in line with the vocational self‐concept results from broadly exploring preferred occupations and forming a vocational identity. Once specified, implementing an occupational choice entails preparing for and obtaining a position. During exploration, society expects that gathering information about self and occupations through part‐time work, curricular and extracurricular experiences, and other activities will lead the adolescent and emerging adult to ultimately select an occupation to enter and thereby implement self in the work role. Traversing the exploration stage involves learning about the structure and opportunities of the world‐of‐work, initially implementing a vocational self‐concept, and exploring occupations broadly through a capacity to look around (Savickas, 1997). Successful movement through exploration yields planfulness, curiosity to explore work roles, and knowledge about career decision‐making principles and the occupational world.

Establishment.  Career exploration yields occupational choice, work role entry, and a new set of tasks in the succeeding life stage of establishment. Traversing ages 25–44 in a prototypical pattern; establishment involves stabilizing, consolidating, and advancing the self‐concept and a career pattern to develop a secure place in the world of work. Stabilizing involves settling into and securing a new position by performing competently and acclimating successfully to the work culture. This gives way to consolidating the position through sustained work productivity, interpersonal effectiveness, and adjustment. Eventually, individuals may pursue advancing to higher‐level positions when possible. Stable self‐concepts and career patterns result from successful establishment wherein the main goal concerns implementing the self‐concept in the work role to yield both a means of earning a living and a meaningful way of living a life. Work devoid of meaning requires workers to realize their self‐concepts in other roles such as parent, spouse, community member, and leisurite. Establishment in today's digital age of insecurity, uncertainty, and frequent job change often proves a more variable and protracted career stage (Savickas, 2011b).

Maintenance.  Research supports renewal (Williams & Savickas, 1990) “as a transitional period between the establishment and maintenance stages” characterized by “questioning future direction and goals … [and] encountered primarily by younger maintainers” (p. 173). Successful career establishment at midlife therefore prompts a sustainability question. Individuals ask themselves whether or not they want to continue in their established positions until retirement. If not, they revisit prior tasks of exploration and establishment to make an occupational or organizational change. If so, they continue on with new tasks of career maintenance. Spanning ages 45–65, maintenance concentrates on the prime goal of building on the vocational self‐concept developed, implemented, and stabilized in the foregoing career stages. Because people deal in various ways with the long‐term prospects of continuing in their positions, maintenance stage tasks may be better termed “styles” or “strategies.” For some people, maintenance involves a strategy of holding on to a secured position through continued job proficiency. For other people, maintenance constitutes updating knowledge and skills to enhance performance or innovating new and creative ways of performing to keep work vigorous and fresh. Innovating particularly may prevent career plateaus (Tan & Salomone, 1994) and mid‐career changes due to job dissatisfaction. Like establishment, career maintenance may elude many workers in the contemporary global economy because of the effects of job loss, “dejobbing” that shifts work from jobs to assignments, corporate failure, and organizational restructuring.

Disengagement.  The grand narrative of life‐span career development concludes in late adulthood with the disengagement stage. Encompassing ages 65 and older, disengagement presents the long‐time worker with a major life transition to retirement (Shultz & Wang, 2011). This transition shifts the focus from self‐concept development, implementation, stabilization, and enhancement in work roles to developing and implementing role self‐concepts more fully in other domains, such as family, community, and leisure. Disengagement tasks present themselves in the form of decelerating workloads and productivity levels, retirement planning to organize finances and structure daily activities (Adams & Rau, 2011), and retirement living to answer questions of where to live, what to do, and how to revitalize and form new relationships outside the workplace. Individuals during disengagement may ask themselves “What will retirement mean for me?” or “How will I adjust?”

Increased life expectancies, early retirement options, and cost‐of‐living concerns may prompt revisiting tasks of exploration and establishment to obtain bridge employment (Zhan, Wang, Liu, & Shultz, 2009) or develop encore careers (Freedman, 2007). Through bridge employment, workers engage in part‐time, self‐, or temporary employment after leaving full‐time work to better sustain their mental and physical health as well as their financial solvency. Encore careers replace retirement with engagement in alternative work that allows greater personal meaning, fulfillment, or social impact than prior work made possible. Recent theorizing has articulated eight metaphors that reflect various meanings of retirement ranging from “loss,” characterized by purposelessness and threatened identity, to “transformation,” characterized by adopting a new role, lifestyle, and identity (Sargent, Bataille, Vough, & Lee, 2011). Meanwhile, the changing nature of work and an unsettled economy couple to alter the very nature and long‐term viability of retirement itself for many workers (Shultz & Wang, 2011).

Managing tasks, transitions, and traumas.  Life stage success requires career maturity, a term Super (1955) coined to explain and measure progress in moving through the developmental stages and tasks particularly associated with exploration. Career maturity denotes attitudinal and cognitive readiness to make educational and vocational choices. Attitudinal readiness means active engagement in planning and exploring an occupational future. Cognitive readiness means possessing knowledge about occupations and how to make good career decisions. The Career Maturity Inventory (CMI; Crites, 1965; Crites & Savickas, 1995) measures global and specific dimensions of career maturity. Super et al. (1979) subsequently constructed the Career Development Inventory (CDI) (for a review see Savickas & Hartung, 1996) to also measure level of career choice readiness more broadly in terms of engagement in career planning and exploration as well as knowledge about career decision‐making and the world of work. Counselors and researchers may find both measures available at www.vocopher.com.

Applied largely to research in and evolving from the career pattern study (Super, 1985; Super & Overstreet, 1960), career maturity proved an apt term to denote increased choice readiness typically accompanying age and grade‐level increases during the adolescent years. Despite attempts to apply the construct beyond the exploration stage, “the focus remained on a structural model of career maturity in adolescence” (Savickas, 1997, p. 250). Recognizing this constraint and the limitations inherent in using a biologically based term to describe a psychosocially based process, the theory eventually replaced career maturity with career adaptability (Savickas, 1997; Super & Knasel, 1981; Super et al., 1996). Career adaptability entails having the readiness and resources to cope with developmental tasks, career transitions, and work traumas across the entire life span (Savickas, 2005). Recent research has advanced and supported career adaptability along three primary dimensions of planning, exploring, and deciding (e.g., Creed, Fallon, & Hood, 2009; Hirschi, 2009; Koen, Klehe, Van Vianen, Zikic, & Nauta, 2010; Maree, 2017). The most recently revised version of the CMI produced an adaptability form that measures the dimensions of career adaptability for diagnostic work with school populations up to and including twelfth grade (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012).

Career adaptability aids development as individuals cycle and recycle through the five career stages over the life span. These five career stages collectively provide an overarching structure of career development. Individually, each stage in fact serves a principal function in that it helps to achieve a particular purpose with regard to completing developmental tasks associated with growing, exploring, establishing, maintaining, and disengaging from work roles. Individuals visit and revisit the tasks associated with each function over the life course. Normative transitions such as voluntary job change and work‐based traumas such as job loss prompt new growth, re‐exploration, and reestablishment. Activated by personal, social, or economic factors or a combination of these factors, transitions mark passage from one career stage, or function, to the next. Movement through the stages and tasks over chronological time constitutes the maxicycle of career development.

Because people often recycle by revisiting developmental stages and tasks through which they have passed earlier in their lives, career development also may involve various minicycles of development. For example, a high‐school science teacher with an established career decides at midlife to transition to a different occupational field. Similarly, a 30‐year‐old veteran disengages from military service and transitions to work in civilian life, while a 42‐year‐old homemaker explores options for re‐entering the paid workforce. Such situations prompt new cycles of movement (i.e., recycling) through earlier career tasks. Each developmental age period, too, presents tasks of later career stages reflecting this cycling and recycling (Super & Thompson, 1981). For example, adolescence involves the disengagement task of giving less time to play and hobbies, while late adulthood presents the exploration task of finding a good place to live in retirement. The life‐span segment of the theory thus accounts for both linear and circuitous life–career patterns.

LIFE SPACE: ARRANGING SOCIAL ROLES

Every life needs a context, a structure to shape its development. Life structure comes in the form of a grand design of social roles arranged within various domains of human activity. Performing roles of worker, spouse or partner, volunteer, and leisurite in work, family, community, and play domains offers an identifiable and potentially meaningful life structure. Too little structure and inactivity across domains breed ennui and various mental health problems. For example, work‐role loss causes depression, anxiety, and lowered subjective well‐being (Paul & Moser, 2009). Too much structure and overactivity breed exhaustion and other problems. For example, work‐role over‐engagement produces burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001) and conflict with roles in other domains such as family (Halbesleben, Harvey, & Bolino, 2009). Therefore, designing a life to achieve balance among roles becomes imperative for overall satisfaction and well‐being (Niles, Herr, & Hartung, 2001). The life‐space segment of life‐span, life‐space theory deals with the context of career development within a web of social roles individuals occupy and enact over the life span (Super, 1990; Super et al., 1996). Depicted by the inner arcs of the life–career rainbow (Figure 4.2), the life space constitutes core roles individuals use to design their lives. Mindful of life's complex and context‐rich nature, the theory thus situates career choice and development within this constellation of social roles.

Super (1980) proposed that nine major roles constitute the typical life structure in chronological order of child, student, leisurite, citizen, worker, spouse, homemaker, parent, and annuitant. In the example of Figure 4.2, the individual played six core roles over the life span. A typical life structure comprises two or three core roles, with other roles playing a negligible or no part (Super et al., 1996). Among these, the worker role typically represents a core role given the cultural, social, and personal imperative to work. Yet, worker offers just one of several role possibilities. Rather than prizing the work role, life‐span, life‐space theory uses the construct of role salience to explain and consider the relative importance that individuals ascribe to various roles in the course of their lives. As measured by the Salience Inventory (SI) (Super & Nevill, 1985a; www.vocopher.com), role salience entails behavioral, emotional, and values components. These components denote how much one participates, feels invested, and expects to realize important outcomes in a given role. Role salience thus accounts for how a person may perform a great deal in a role (e.g., work long hours) and want much from it (e.g., receive good pay and benefits), yet not feel particularly devoted to it (e.g., would give up the work role for a life of leisure, family, and community activity if not for the money).

A host of factors shape levels of role salience and role viability within the many role contexts of human development. These factors include prevailing cultural value orientations, the changing nature of work, societal diversity, fluctuating economic conditions, gender and family expectations, social class, and occupational and other barriers (Blustein, 2006; Cook, 1994; Fitzgerald & Betz, 1994; Hartung, 2002; Richardson, 1993). Roles, too, interact to varying degrees in ways that may be complementary and supportive or conflictual and straining (Halbesleben et al., 2009). Family support may ease job stress, whereas work over‐engagement may strain family life. Individuals typically seek career counseling at times of role change and when they want to redesign their life structures into a different pattern of life roles (Super et al., 1996). Counselors, in response, must first recognize and address the relative importance that clients ascribe to various life roles rather than assuming that the work role constitutes the main focus of the client's problems and concerns. Recent theorizing has elaborated on life roles as vehicles for developing a personal career identity and public career success (Hoekstra, 2011).

SELF‐CONCEPTS: DEVELOPING, IMPLEMENTING, AND ADJUSTING SELF

Across the life span and through the life space, individuals develop, implement, and adjust their self‐concepts to optimally fit themselves to social roles (Super, 1951). The twin processes of traversing career stages and arranging social roles engage the individual in developing a vocational self‐concept, applying it to the work role, and regulating it according to changes in self and circumstances. Self‐concepts develop from a combination of heredity, social learning experiences, opportunities, and evaluations by self and others. The vocational self‐concept reflects both personal (e.g., needs, values, and interests) and situational (e.g., economy, society, and labor market) factors. Occupational choice entails implementing a self‐concept, work expresses the fullness of self, and career development encompasses a “continuing process of improving the match between self and situations” (Super et al., 1996, p. 139).

As we have seen, developing a vocational self‐concept represents the primary adaptive goal or function of career growth for children and for adults recycling through this stage. Then, in exploration, the adolescent or adult recycler tries implementing the self in work roles. During establishment, the young or recycling adult who has implemented a vocational self‐concept in a work role seeks to stabilize the self in a chosen occupation. As an established career progresses to maintenance, changes in self and circumstance prompt adjusting the work‐role self‐concept accordingly during middle adulthood. Reaching career disengagement, the adult in early retirement or late life relinquishes the work role and devotes energies to more fully developing, implementing, and adjusting self‐concepts in other life roles.

Three of life‐span, life‐space theory's 14 propositions (see Super et al., 1996) deal directly with occupational choice as a function of self‐concept. First, the theory proposes that self‐concept development, implementation, and adjustment entail a lifelong process of decisions and re‐decisions. Self‐concepts grow increasingly stable over the life span, lending coherence and continuity to one's life. Yet, they remain susceptible to change with time and experience. Second, the theory postulates that career development involves processes of developing and implementing occupational self‐concepts. This occurs as the individual synthesizes and negotiates knowledge about self and experiences to form more satisfying person–environment connections. Third, the theory suggests that individuals experience subjective success and satisfaction in work as a function of their ability to implement their vocational self‐concepts in their occupational choices. Individuals more able to enact their self‐concepts in work roles presumably experience greater fulfillment.

As the segment joining life span and life space, self‐concept links person as decider to environment as decision. Work has delineated with remarkable acuity three perspectives on the self and self‐concepts (Phillips, 2011; Savickas, 2011a). Individually, Phillips and Savickas each described the self in three unique terms. Phillips delineated self and self‐concept as a collection of traits, as developing over time, and as decision maker. Meanwhile, Savickas portrayed the self as object in the form of personality, as subject in the form of personhood, and as project in the form of identity. Collectively, the conceptual works of Phillips and Savickas converge on the position advanced by and amenable to life‐span, life‐space theory that the self and self‐concepts comprise differential, developmental, and constructionist dimensions (for more about constructionism and views on the self, see Savickas, 2019, Chapter 6, this volume).

The differential dimension reflects the view that objective knowledge about the content of self and vocational self‐concept (i.e., personality traits or characteristics) combined with knowledge about occupations promotes effective career decision‐making. In the differential view, the self passively matches to occupations that it most resembles comparable to an actor assigned to perform in a work role. The developmental dimension reflects the view that subjective reflection yields meaning (i.e., personhood) as the self and self‐concepts surface, develop, and change over time. In the developmental view, the self actively develops through work roles, much like an agent who manages a career. The constructionist dimension, building upon the differential and developmental perspectives, reflects the view that projective self‐construction involves purposefully using work and career to design and shape experience. In the constructionist view, the self with even greater agency intentionally decides about and scripts the work role, akin to an author who writes a life–career story. The constructionist view on the self goes beyond matching and developing to also emphasize that the individual purposefully reflects on, shapes, and makes meaning of their vocational choices and development.

In sum, life‐span, life‐space theory has long sought to combine these three perspectives on self (i.e., differential, developmental, and constructionist) in one grand statement about career choice and development. Super harvested the fruits of P–E fit and life‐span career psychology, along with social role theory, to articulate the fundamental tenets of life‐span, life‐space theory. He also attended, albeit less deliberately and directly, to the roles of personal constructs (i.e., internal models of reality or beliefs people form about themselves and the world; Kelly, 1955) and narratives in career development and counseling. For example, he alluded to the merits of using personal constructs rather than self‐concepts to connect the life‐span and life‐space segments. Super also articulated the thematic‐extrapolation method (Jepsen, 1994; Super, 1954) as a narrative career counseling intervention for ascertaining life themes to promote career choice and development. The career pattern study collected life history data to capture the rich context and stories of a life–career arch. Ultimately, Super's passing in 1994 left to other theorists the goals of fully reconciling and synthesizing the differential, developmental, and narrative (or constructionist) dimensions of life‐span, life‐space theory. Savickas (2002, 2005, Chapter 6, this volume) offers this very synthesis within career construction theory.

EMPIRICAL SUPPORT

As the life‐span, life‐space approach has ranked among the dominant theories of career choice and development for over 60 years, so too has it prompted a wealth of empirical research about its propositions and principles. Leading the way, Super and his robust cadre of associates and students conducted sustained programmatic research during this period—most notably in the career pattern study (Super, 1985; Super & Overstreet, 1960) and multinational work importance study (Super & Sverko, 1995). These efforts produced substantial evidence in support of many of the theory's concepts (for detailed reviews see Betz, 2008; Borgen, 1991; Hackett, Lent, & Greenhaus, 1991; Hartung et al., 2005; Jepsen, 1984; Osipow & Fitzgerald, 1996).

For example, results of the career pattern study indicated general support for career maturity as a predictor of important outcomes such as career satisfaction, self‐improvement, and occupational satisfaction. Findings also indicated that age‐graded increases in career maturity occur as children and adolescents become more future‐oriented, more actively engaged in exploring careers, and more knowledgeable about occupations and making career decisions. A comprehensive review of the child vocational development literature indicated significant progress in completing developmental tasks consistent with the career stages of growth and exploration (Hartung et al., 2005). Results of the work importance study (Super & Sverko, 1995) indicated support for the validity of constructs of work values and life‐role salience across 12 nations. A review of the work importance study literature concluded that contextual factors such as developmental stage, gender, and culture affect role salience and work values (Niles & Goodnough, 1996). It also pointed out the counseling utility of these two concepts that are central to life‐span, life‐space theory.

A multitude of individual studies have also examined and provided at least reasonable support for aspects of the theory. Review and advancement of much of this work as well as cross‐cultural support appear in a special issue of The Career Development Quarterly (Savickas, 1994). This special issue deals with the theory's key constructs such as career development and maturity, exploration, adaptability, life roles, and work values. The research reviewed pertains to elements across the theory's three primary segments of life‐span, life‐space, and self‐concepts. On balance, the special issue authors concluded that research generally supports these theoretical constructs and would benefit from use of more refined methodologies and inclusion of more diverse participant samples. Elsewhere, research has indicated that a future orientation and planfulness promote career maturity and academic success (Lewis, Savickas, & Jones, 1996). A more recent study supported the proposed planning, exploration, and decision‐making components of career adaptability (Creed et al., 2009).

Research has also supported the validity and reliability of the wide array of psychometric instruments that operationally define various concepts within life‐span, life‐space theory. For example, study findings strongly support the sensitivity and specificity of the CDI as a measure of readiness to make educational and vocational choices and as an operational definition of Super's structural model of adolescent career maturity (Savickas & Hartung, 1996). Likewise, the ACCI provides a valid and reliable measure of attitudes about (Cairo, Kritis, & Myers, 1996) and progress toward completing (Niles, Lewis, & Hartung, 1997) developmental career stages and tasks during the adult years. Research also supports the Values Scale (Nevill & Kruse, 1996) and the SI (Nevill & Calvert, 1996) as valid and reliable measures of work values and life‐role salience, respectively (see Rounds & Leuty, Chapter 16, this volume for a discussion about use and interpretation of work values measures).

Broadly speaking, “the developmental segment is well‐documented, and data relative to the self‐concept segment generally agree with the theory” (Super et al., 1996, p. 145). Literature reviews have both supported and advanced self‐concept as important in career development and career intervention (Betz, 1994; Osipow, 1983). A review by Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996) concluded that the theory has substantial research and practice utility as well as broad empirical support. A wealth of research specifically supports the roles of career maturity and exploratory behavior in promoting career choice and development (Hartung et al., 2005; Savickas & Hartung, 1996).

A criticism of the theory's research base is that there has been an almost exclusive focus on the adolescent and young adult years, with little attention to childhood, and mid and late adulthood. Hartung et al. (2005), however, reviewed a substantial body of literature supporting Super's views of the career development processes during the childhood and early adolescent years, consistent with life‐span, life‐space theory. Beyond growth and early exploration stages, support of family, teachers, and friends fosters success in completing career exploration stage tasks, but later career stages of establishment, maintenance, and disengagement reflect more non‐linear processes in line with the life‐span, life‐space concept of recycling (see Betz, 2008). Critics have also pointed to inadequate consideration of factors such as gender and cultural context as a problem with the theory. In response, research has supported the cross‐cultural validity of the career maturity construct (e.g., Leong & Serafica, 2001) and findings of the work importance study indicated cross‐national support for the constructs of life roles and work values (Super & Sverko, 1995). Conceptual work has also underscored the cultural dimensions and utility of the life roles and values constructs (Hartung, 2002).

Theory revision to include the life‐space and self‐concept segments has also well attended to issues of gender with particular focus on achieving balance among multiple life roles, especially for women. The theory's lack of testable hypotheses and its use as a post hoc way to interpret findings rather than an a priori frame for study design have limited true tests of its propositions (Hackett et al., 1991). Despite a noted contemporary decline in its empirical study, the theory's tremendous breadth has for decades allowed researchers to apply it to considering, comprehending, and consolidating evidence about the vast complexity of vocational behavior and development in diverse contexts.

LIFE‐SPAN, LIFE‐SPACE CAREER INTERVENTION

Reflecting the dictum “there is nothing so practical as a good theory” (Lewin, 1952, p. 169), the life‐span, life‐space approach offers a useful guide for career intervention. During 60 years of theory development, Super and his colleagues simultaneously devised methods and materials for assisting individuals to prepare for, enter, and adjust to work roles over the life span. This culminated in a model known as Career‐Development Assessment and Counseling (C‐DAC; Super, 1983). C‐DAC systematically applies life‐span, life‐space theory's key components (i.e., the archway of career determinants, the life–career rainbow, and the ladder model of career stages and tasks) to career intervention practice by blending elements of the differential, developmental, and self‐concept segments of the theory into one comprehensive four‐step scheme. The model's differential component reflects Parsons's (1909) matching model and Holland's (1997) person–environment fit theory. The model's developmental component directly reflects Super's (1990) life‐span, life‐space theory that recognizes the stages and roles that constitute a life–career arch. The model's self‐concept or personal construct component reflects the preferred use of a narrative approach in transitioning from career assessment to career counseling (Super, Osborne, Walsh, Brown, & Niles, 1992).

ASSESSMENT BATTERY

Using a comprehensive career assessment battery, the C‐DAC approach helps clients explore their life roles, developmental stages and tasks, career attitudes and knowledge, values, and interests within their unique life contexts. The C‐DAC model offers counselors flexibility in using various measures in career assessment. A typical C‐DAC battery includes the following four core measures to assess: (a) role salience, (b) developmental concerns, (c) career maturity, and (d) work values and interests. All of these measures are freely available to career service providers and researchers at www.vocopher.com.

Role salience is typically assessed with SI of Super and Nevill (1985a)SI. The SI measures the extent to which individuals participate in, commit to, and expect to realize values in five life roles: student, worker, citizen, homemaker (including spouse and parent), and leisurite. The ACCI (Super et al., 1988) assesses developmental concerns and attitudes. The ACCI's 4 scales and 12 subscales measure concerns related to the career stages and developmental tasks, respectively, of exploration (crystallizing, specifying, implementing), establishment (stabilizing, consolidating, advancing), maintenance (holding, updating, innovating), and disengagement (decelerating, retirement planning, retirement living). The ACCI can be used to measure developmental task mastery as well as level of concern with developmental tasks (Niles et al., 1997).

Career maturity may be assessed with the CDI (Super et al., 1979). The CDI measures readiness for making educational and vocational choices. The CDI has two parts: career orientation and knowledge of preferred occupation. Career orientation includes four scales that measure career planning (CP), career exploration (CE), career decision‐making (DM), and world‐of‐work information (WW). Knowledge of preferred options contains one scale measuring knowledge of preferred occupational Group (PO). Three composite scores result from summing individual scale scores as follows: career development attitudes (CDA) combine CP and CE; career development knowledge and skills (CDK) combine DM and WW; career orientation total combines CDA and CDK. Higher scores indicate greater career maturity. Career maturity can also be assessed among youth with the Career Maturity Inventory‐Adaptability Form (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012) and in adults with the Career Adapt‐Abilities Scale (Porfeli & Savickas, 2012). The Values Scale (VS; Super & Nevill, 1985b; see Rounds & Leuty, Chapter 16, this volume) is typically used to measure 21 basic intrinsic and extrinsic values people seek in work and life. A typical C‐DAC assessment battery concludes with the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) (see Hansen, Chapter 15, this volume) to assess vocational interests.

INTERVENTION PROCESS

Counselors implement the C‐DAC model in a four‐step process of preview, depth view, data assessment, and counseling. This process begins in step one with a preview that comprises a review of any available data (e.g., school and prior counseling records), an initial interview to identify the client's presenting concerns, and the formation of a preliminary intervention plan. Central to this first step, the practitioner assesses work importance relative to the importance of life roles in other theaters such as school, home and family, community, and leisure. This assessment may be done informally through dialogue and formally using the SI. Ascertaining level of role salience indicates how individuals wish to arrange their life roles. Individuals high in work‐role salience show readiness to maximally benefit from further career intervention. Individuals low in work‐role salience may need help with either orienting to the worker role and its importance as a central life task or with exploring and preparing for other life roles.

C‐DAC's next step is a depth view that systematically measures career stage using the ACCI and career development level using the CDI. This process indicates how ready the individual is for career decision‐making activities, such as identifying and exploring occupational interests and work values. Individuals low in career choice readiness need interventions to increase planfulness, exploratory behavior, and knowledge about decision‐making and the structure of work and occupations. Assessing readiness before assessing traits such as interests to match people to occupations is critical because as Super (1983) stated, “Matchmaking is hardly likely to last unless those being matched are ready and willing” (p. 557). Once a client is ready for career decision‐making, attention turns to data assessment, to measuring vocational interests, abilities, and values using appropriate inventories and scales. In a typical C‐DAC battery, these instruments include the SII (Donnay, Morris, Schaubhut, & Thompson, 2005) and the VS (Super & Nevill, 1985b).

C‐DAC concludes in a fourth step of counseling that involves interpreting all of the assessment data to yield an integrated picture of the individual and a plan for action. An elaboration of the C‐DAC model also suggested appraising cultural identity in the first step and considering cultural identity concerns throughout the process (Hartung et al., 1998). Interested readers may wish to study the original (Super, 1983) and subsequent descriptions and illustrations of the C‐DAC approach (e.g., Hartung, 1998; Hartung et al., 1998; Niles & Usher, 1993; Osborne, Brown, Niles, & Miner, 1997; Taber & Hartung, 2002). Ultimately, C‐DAC helps guide practitioners in teaching children, adolescents, and adults the planning attitudes, career beliefs, and decision‐making competencies necessary for life–career success (Savickas, 2005, 2019). The approach also assists individuals with completing developmental tasks and clarifying and implementing their self‐concepts. As a comprehensive scheme for linking people to occupations that fit with their self‐concepts and within the broader arrangement of their life roles, C‐DAC offers a useful guide and method for career intervention.

CONCLUSION

Having passed the zenith of its own conceptual and empirical advancement, life‐span, life‐space theory remains “a sophisticated framework for comprehending the full complexity of vocational behavior and its development in diverse groups in manifold settings” (Super et al., 1996, p. 170). As evidence of its preeminent influence, concepts underlying life‐span, life‐space theory pervade much theoretical and applied work evidenced in many of the chapters of this volume and in other works (e.g., Blustein, 2006; Brown, 2002; Gottfredson, 2002; Guichard, 2005; Hoekstra, 2011; Vondracek, Lerner, & Schulenberg, 1986). Most notably, readers will find the central tenets, propositions, and practical materials of the life‐span, life‐space approach directly and substantially updated and advanced in the theory and practice of career construction (Savickas, 2002, 2005, 2019, Chapter 6, this volume) as well as in resources available for free in an Internet‐based career development and counseling resource, referred to as a career “collaboratory” (see Glavin & Savickas, 2010; www.vocopher.com). Such conceptual and practical advancement well befits the spirit of life‐span, life‐space theory as a fluid, contextual, and multidimensional approach to understanding and developing careers that remains open to continued renovation and refinement.

PRACTICE POINTS

• Despite sustained efforts to apply career theories to counseling, the fact remains as Osipow (1994) stated some years ago: “Career theories are not counseling theories” (p. 222). Most career theories, unlike counseling and psychotherapy theories, do not explicitly guide counseling practice. The C‐DAC (Super et al., 1992) model that emerged from life‐span, life‐space theory proves to be a clear exception in this regard. That is because C‐DAC offers career service providers a practical model for developmental career counseling to increase clients' career choice readiness, ability to manage a lifetime of career development tasks and transitions, and to make a career while living a life.
• C‐DAC fits within a framework of three paradigms for career counseling that include vocational guidance, career development, and life design (see Savickas, 2015, Chapter 6, this volume).
  • Counseling methods within the vocational guidance paradigm help clients answer the question “What occupation shall I choose?” in order to promote congruence between self and occupational setting (Holland, 1997). Vocational guidance best serves clients who need to affirm an expressed occupational choice, identify alternative educational or occupational pathways to consider, and determine what occupations fit them best.
  • Counseling methods within the career development paradigm help clients answer the question “How do I manage my career?” in order to promote adaptability for navigating career tasks and transitions (Maree, 2017; Savickas, 1997; Super & Knasel, 1981). Career development best serves clients who need to acquire the attitudes, beliefs, and competencies needed for career planning, decision‐making, exploration, and problem‐solving (Maree, 2017; Savickas, 2002).
  • Counseling methods within the life‐design paradigm help clients answer the question “How do I use work and career in my life?” in order to sharpen identity and narrate a meaningful life–career story (Savickas, 2019, Chapter 6, this volume). Life design best serves clients who need to construe their lives holistically and comprehend how they can use work to be themselves more completely.
  • In short, guidance involves what occupation to pick, development concerns how to prepare for career decision‐making, and life design encompasses what purpose work serves in an individual's life.
• Life‐span, life‐space theory leaves practitioners with a useful guide and tools for practice. As a guide for practice, the theory reminds practitioners that career choice and development encompass a lifelong, developmental process that begins in childhood (Hartung et al., 2005) and proceeds continuously over the life course. Each life stage presents particular problems to solve and these problems may, and often do, surface and resurface in predictable and unpredictable ways at various age periods. By attending to the developmental nature of careers, counselors can assist clients to understand and deal with current and imminent developmental tasks to promote effective career planning, career exploration, career decision‐making, and work adjustment at all life stages. Practitioners can help clients ready themselves for designing their careers and navigating successfully through both anticipated transitions, such as from school to work, job to job, and work to retirement, and unanticipated work‐based traumas, such as job loss, work disability, and job dissatisfaction.
• Applying a developmental perspective on careers to counseling practice, the theory also reminds practitioners to help clients arrange their work and other life roles into a livable and satisfying pattern. Recognizing that worker represents one of many psychosocial roles that people play helps counselors more effectively understand, assess, and intervene with clients relative to the multiple roles that form the basis of the life structure. Greater cultural relevance in practice can be achieved by exploring the unique meanings clients ascribe to life roles and helping them to comprehend how society and their cultural backgrounds shape those meanings. By attending to the collection of traits that individuals possess as well as the meaning and purpose those traits hold for the work role, counselors can help clients clarify and shape their self‐concepts. With greater self‐concept clarity, clients may experience an improved match between self and occupation as well as a more purposeful implementation of self in work and other life roles.
• Life‐span, life‐space theory informed the development of many career assessment instruments. These measures, combined with the language for understanding career development that the theory offers, provide useful tools for fostering careers across the life span and through the life space.

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