Abstract:
This article reports on the use of integrative career counselling to promote autobiographical
reasoning in a purposively sampled gifted 16-year-old female learner with moratorium career identity
status. I implemented an explanatory, mixed-methods (QUALITATIVE-quantitative; uppercase
denoting the bigger weighting given to the qualitative aspect) research design and used qualitative
and quantitative career construction counselling techniques and methods and quantitative career
construction counselling techniques and methods and strategies to construct data. The Maree Career
Matrix (MCM) was used to gather the participant’s career interests (“scores”) quantitatively, and
the Career Interest Profile (CIP) was used to elicit her micro-narratives (“stories”) qualitatively. An
adapted version of thematic data analysis was used to analyse the data. The intervention promoted
the participant’s (self-)reflection and reflexivity, transformed her tension into intention, led to an
increase in her career options, and helped her revitalise her sense of meaning, purpose, and positivity.
While the findings are encouraging, future (longitudinal) research is needed to establish the long-term
influence of the intervention espoused here.
