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Have you ever spent an hour with a client, only to feel as if you had only scratched the surface when they tell you they want more than a job, but real meaning and purpose in their lives? Are you a career counsellor who is open to including intuitive ways of knowing within the career decision making process? If not, stop reading now, as this article will likely not resonate with you. But if you are – read on to learn about a new theory within career counselling that embraces synchronicity and intuition in order to help clients navigate the often chaotic and complex world around them.
Intuition
Intuition can be understood as the gap between the conscious and unconscious, as well as instinctual wisdom and reason, often experienced as felt knowledge within the body. Some mainstream approaches to career counselling omit this kind of knowing and regard it as untrustworthy and unworthy of exploration.
Synchronicity
Synchronicity can be understood as the meaningful connection of two or more events that cannot easily be explained by chance alone. Synchronistic experiences may include:
- dream premonitions
- having knowledge without any logical way of explaining that knowledge
- being at the right place at the right time
- meeting the right person to help solve a particular problem
- finding an answer in a book or song just when it is needed
- sharing physical symptoms with a loved one even at great distances
- observing specific number patterns at a rate difficult to explain by chance alone
- observing two or more phenomenon occurring together where the connection cannot be logically explained
Synchronicity Learning Theory (SLT)
Synchronicity Learning Theory (SLT), (Payne, 2023), is a new theory and counselling model that encourages clients to: 1) take actions to create and benefit from unplanned opportunities, and 2) pay attention to – and learn from – the meaningful connections related to these chance events. It is not to be confused with magical thinking, where distorted thoughts draw connections where none exist. Instead, SLT encourages clients to remain open to the possibility that there is a spiritual dimension to the world that appears as synchronicity – and that they may learn from these synchronistic experiences while determining their next best steps in life.
“It is not to be confused with magical thinking, where distorted thoughts draw connections where none exist.”
Three-step approach
Counsellors are well aware that not every theory or approach resonates with every client. SLT may be a useful approach for clients who gravitate toward more intuitive ways of knowing – who are willing to contemplate the mysterious and unknown. These steps can help counsellors determine if SLT is a fit for their client and, if so, how to proceed.
- Exploring worldview – Conversations around worldview are essential before engaging in SLT. Counsellors may use a conversational approach to assess the client’s openness to synchronicity and intuition, or may prefer to use a more formalized assessment tool such as the Myers Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) or the Beitman Weird Coincidence Survey. Those clients open to intuition may be introduced to SLT, while clients who prefer more empirical ways of knowing may be offered a version of Krumboltz’s Happenstance Learning Theory (HLT), which attaches no underlying meaning to chance events.
- Taking action – Through the lens of SLT, clients are encouraged to take risks and engage in actions that generate unplanned, potentially beneficial opportunities that may push them forward in life. What is most important at this stage is that the client moves toward any goal, one step at a time, with the knowledge that this momentum will help unstick them from their current place of indecision, stagnation or discontent. Helping clients explore actions that may be loosely related to an identified goal – for instance, joining a local writer’s guild if they are considering journalism as a career choice – will also help them to generate more opportunities for chance events.
The goal of career counselling is not to assist clients in making one career decision and ending the counselling relationship there; SLT encourages them to engage in exploratory actions to generate unplanned events that could lead to a variety of career and life opportunities.
- Finding meaning – Clients are encouraged to be open to meaningful connections within the resulting chance events that may arise – moments of intuition, unexplainable coincidences or repeated patterns that awaken them to the mysteries of the unseen world. Paying attention to these synchronistic events – with an openness to the idea that the world is a living organism with blurred boundaries between self and other – may offer an alternative way of being in the world that resonates with those deepest parts of the self that long to be part of something more. Conversations at this stage will focus on supporting clients to contemplate and examine the synchronistic experiences within their lives, using this information to help them find more than a job or career, but life purpose and meaning.
One wild and precious life
For some people, lived experiences have demonstrated that the world is more interconnected than they first believed it to be. A-causal connections may be better understood as advancements in modern physics that help explain the relationship between the seen and unseen worlds – where synchronistic events are viewed as openings in the thin veil that separates these worlds. The language of synchronicity may offer a way to communicate with a universe that is web-like, interdependent and inter-vibrational – as counsellors help each client navigate these liminal spaces with the bravery to live their one wild and precious life.
