Chapter Review
Key Concepts
What is a Self-Portrait?
- The Self-Portrait is a flexible tool for navigating career transitions that provides clients with the confidence and clarity needed to pursue new career prospects, highlighting the importance of understanding one’s skills, interests, and goals.
Steps in Creating a Self-Portrait
- The Self-Portrait method allows clients to organize their experiences and aspirations without being confined to specific job titles, enabling a broader and more dynamic approach to career planning.
- This tool allows clients to create a comprehensive profile that evolves with them by focusing on meaningfulness, outcomes, activities, and skills, fostering continual self-discovery and development.
- Facilitators must remember that the Self-Portrait is a tool, not a solution, that can help clients articulate their unique narratives and aspirations.
Ways to Use the Self-Portrait
- Analyze the Self-Portrait with your clients to identify assets and gaps in skill and knowledge.
- Once assets and gaps are identified, use the Self-Portrait with your clients to build and action plan to fulfill both immediate and enduring needs.
Using the Self-Portrait in a Group Setting
- The Self-Portrait should be tailored to meet the client’s needs through individual or group settings and should always prioritize the client’s perspective and goals.
- In a group setting participants benefit from group interaction and from sharing their portraits with others.
Practice and Reflection Questions
Creating Self-Portraits—Practice
To help you learn the process of Creating Self Portraits, you are to work with a student learning partner to practice the method. This requires self-reflection and authenticity to be effective. Remember to prepare in advance to act as both client and counsellor.
Please download the blank Self-Portrait sheet to complete this activity. Review the following guidelines before you begin the process of creating a Self-Portrait with your learning partner.
Learning Partner Practice Guidelines
Counsellor Goals
- Develop rapport
- Ask the essential questions
- Ensure you understand what the person is saying
- Record the information in the client’s words
- Focus on the client
Client Goals
- Be yourself; this is a “real play,” not a “role play.”
- Allow yourself to experience the process for you fully!
Reflection Question
When you have completed the process of creating a Self-portrait with your learning partner, write an analysis stating the thoughts and feelings that you experienced using the process both as a client and a counsellor. (A minimum of 200 words is required for this answer.)
- What did you like/dislike about it?
- What did you learn about yourself from this process?
- What would you like to develop in yourself to increase your effectiveness?
- How would you modify this method?
