Trajectories of Change in Career Decision Difficulties During a Manualized Individual Career Counseling Intervention: The Influence of Counselor Adherence, Working Alliance and Client Personality Traits

This study aimed to identify trajectories of change in client career decision difficulties during a manualized career counseling intervention and examine the role of counselor adherence, working alliance, and personality traits in predicting these trajectories. Participants were 257 individuals who received an average of 7.79 career counseling sessions at a university career services center. Using growth mixture modeling, four class-trajectories were identified. Clients in class 1 had a moderate level of decision difficulties at the beginning of counseling while clients in classes 2, 3 and 4 had moderate-salient initial levels of difficulties. Clients in classes 1 and 2 experienced a very large reduction of their decision difficulties during counseling and left the process with negligible levels of difficulties. Clients in class 3 saw a large reduction of their decision difficulties during counseling and left the process with moderate levels of difficulties. Clients in class 4 did not experience change and left the process with moderate-salient levels of difficulties. Counselor adherence to the intervention manual significantly contributed to discriminate between clients from class 4 and clients from classes 1, 2 and 3. Client level of neuroticism significantly contributed to distinguish clients belonging to class 4 from clients belonging to class 1.