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Integrative Life Planning: Critical Tasks for Career Development and Changing Life Patterns
L. Sunny Hansen
Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997, 358 pages
Reviewed by Deanna S. Forney
Western Illinois University
The preface to this book begins with samples of newspaper headlines selected to represent the changing work environment in the U.S. Layoffs, lack of job security, and unsuccessful job searches are themes. In response, author L. Sunny Hansen argues that "we need a new philosophy of career planning; new attitudes about work, family, and other life roles; new ways of relating to others; and a new sense of the purpose of work in community" (p. xi). Relatedly, Hansen points out that career development theories have been criticized for their lack of congruence with the nature of people's lives today. Therefore, Hansen presents in this volume her model titled "Integrative Life Planning (ILP)," an interdisciplinary framework for examining the context of individuals' lives and the choices which individuals make within those contexts. The book includes nine chapters. The first two present background related to the ILP model; each of the next six chapters discusses one of the "critical tasks" of the model; and the final chapter summarizes the model and offers implications for career development professionals, her intended audience. Also included is a resource chapter which describes strategies for implementing the ILP model.
Hansen argues for a holistic approach to career development and maintains that the more traditional and linear "trait and factor" approach of matching the "right" person with the "right" job is inconsistent with the multiple career transitions which many individuals experience and with the nature of our global society. She offers seven reasons why career development approaches must change. These reasons include: changing societies, resulting in changing contexts for individual lives; changing career definitions, acknowledging multiple potentialities for the individual; changing demographics, demanding skills in dealing with a diverse, multicultural society; changing lives, particularly in regard to gender roles; changing organizations and work places, including the demise of the one-job-forlife pattern; personal transitions and changing work patterns, with an estimate of five to seven major career changes in a lifetime; and the growing recognition that the value of individualism has been exaggerated and contributes to fragmented individuals and a fragmented society.
To address the preceding...