Simple matching models of decision making are no longer sufficient as a basis for career counselling and education. The challenge for contemporary careers advisers is how to communicate some of the complexities of modern career development to their students; in particular, the apparently contradictory relationship between the need for planning and…

The chaos theory of careers emphasises continual change, the centrality and importance of chance events, the potential of minor events to have disproportionately large impacts on subsequent events, and the capacity for dramatic phase shifts in career behaviour. This approach challenges traditional approaches to career counselling, assumptions…

Four theoretical streams--contexualism/ecology, systems theory, realism/constructivism, and chaos theory--contributed to a theory of individuals as complex, unique, nonlinear, adaptive chaotic and open systems. Individuals use purposive action to construct careers but can make maladaptive and inappropriate choices. (Contains 42 references.) (SK)

This paper highlights five challenges to the accepted wisdom in career development theory and practice. It presents the chaos theory of careers and argues that the chaos theory provides a more complete and authentic account of human behaviour. The paper argues that positivism, reductionism and assumptions of linearity are inappropriate for…