Abstract
Background: Student educational psychologists must learn to navigate the unfathomable depths of human experience with nuanced insight. However, a diagnostic checklist approach is increasingly dominating psychological practice, emphasising biomedical symptoms and subsequent pharmacological treatment above deeper psychological insight. A phenomenological approach to experience may serve as a buffer against the reductionist medicalisation of ordinary lifeworld matters. The genogram’s inherently embodied character renders it an appropriate teaching tool for developing phenomenological consciousness.
Objectives: This article is a self-reflective narrative on how I propose using the career-focused genogram to increase phenomenological consciousness among student educational psychologists.
Methods: This exploratory investigation used a self-reflective narrative research approach to understand the career-focused genogram as a pedagogical strategy to encourage phenomenological consciousness among student educational psychologists. Reflective teaching journal entries and teaching notes serve as the foundation for this investigation.
Results: My teaching experiences using a Deweyan framework of analysis revealed three major themes: the genogram as a metaphorical function of the phenomenological orientation; the career-focused genogram as an integrated life-career ecology; and the self-constructed career-focused genogram as an embodied engagement activity.
Conclusion: The career-focused genogram as an enactment of the phenomenological condition of embeddedness can be used to promote a pluralistic psychology education that values both scientific and philosophically orientated approaches towards understanding and appreciating the depth and nuance of matters related to the lifeworld.
Contribution: This article offers a contextual perspective to existing literature on the importance of a philosophically orientated educational psychology curriculum as an alternative to a technicist diagnose-and-treat curriculum.
Keywords: phenomenological consciousness; student educational psychologists; career-focused genogram; embodied engagement; pedagogical strategy; self-reflective narrative.
Introduction
Phenomenological consciousness suggests an ontological awareness of human experience in its complexity. It is the capacity to be able to deeply relate with oneself as an integrated or embodied lifeworld situatedness, a relational enactment anchored in structures of experience, such as language (story), place (internal, psychological experience, context), temporality (past, present, future) and historicity (being part of historical unfolding or actuality) (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, 2001; Moran, 2013).
Phenomenological consciousness, as a philosophical mindset, is not typically included in mainstream psychology textbooks, despite a plea to revive awareness for the discipline’s philosophical background (Murphy et al., 2024; Woods, 2003). The disconnect between philosophy and educational psychology has been noted in educational psychology courses around the world, which place limited emphasis on the philosophical roots of educational psychology (Alexander, 2003; Hibberd & Petocz, 2023; Murphy, 2003). The risk here is that theoretical frameworks, concepts and phenomena may be reduced to disembodied, essentialist learning, instead of being inhabited and understood on a deeper, more personal level. What is important is not only what student educational psychologists know but also how they know, in this case responding to and apprehending experience in a conscious manner. In other words, they experience immersed engagement characterised by a comprehensive state of perceptual, intellectual and emotional attentiveness and openness (Moran, 2013). In such circumstances, knowledge is not external to the student but rather reflects intentional, immersed being-in-the-world (Husserl & Moran, 2012; Moran, 2000).
Educational psychology acknowledges that an embodied being-in-the-world – or connected experience – is fundamental to deeper meaning making and that ‘higher cognitive abilities such as critical thinking and problem-solving extend throughout the body’ (Macrine & Fugate, 2022, p. 16–17). Well-known phenomenological approach of the phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty (2002) has provided the foundation for scholars in educational psychology to conceptualise embodied learning as the synthetisation of physical (body) and mental (affective, intellectual) processing qualities, resulting in a unified, being-in-the-world experience. It is important to be reminded that in this context, phenomenology is understood and practised as ‘an attitude or style of attending to experience’ rather than a thinking style as in descriptive phenomenological research (Halling, 2012, p. 2079). The educational psychology curriculum and classroom can support students in cultivating appropriate phenomenological consciousness by encouraging the principle of embodied learning. This means that students will get exposed to teaching that emphasises experience as a deeply connected, interwoven unity, rather than ‘separate mental and physical mechanisms that are isolated from one another’ (Stolz, 2014, p. 474).
In this article, I provide a self-reflective narrative of my understanding of how the genogram, as part of the Career Psychology module,1 could be used to encourage phenomenological consciousness with student educational psychologists. Through my teaching of Career Psychology, I aim to assist students to understand and engage with a phenomenological consciousness as a particular mindset. It is by way of phenomenological engagement that the tenderness of another’s lifeworld is acknowledged and recognised (Abbs, 2005; Van Manen, 2017). In recent years, I have deliberately moved away from teaching students only about the genogram as a clinical and assessment tool to rather helping them view the genogram as a metaphor for embodied lifeworld situatedness. The genogram’s inherently embodied character renders it an appropriate teaching tool for exploring phenomenological awareness.
Over the previous two to three decades, concerned scholars and practitioners in the fields of psychology and psychiatry have expressed concerns about the medicalisation of everyday human life challenges. In this article, the term ‘medicalisation of life’ refers to the dominant trend of classifying normal aspects of the human condition as mental disorders, thereby diminishing the complex interplay of neurology, personal psychology, relationships and larger social environments in the development of mental challenges (Martínez, 2023; Strong et al., 2015; Thomas, 2021). Strong et al. (2017) suggest that, in addition to increased medically orientated regulation of psychology practice, there is a growing tendency to medicalise ordinary human experiences such as stress, grief and sadness. An increased emphasis on diagnosis appears to be playing a role in the present medicalisation trend. Several authors (e.g. Conrad, 2007; Frances, 2013; Fawcett et al., 2020; Greenberg, 2014, 2019, 2025; Martínez, 2023; Strong et al., 2015) have pointed out that as the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association [APA] 2022) diagnoses have increasingly come to inform and regulate psychological practice, undue emphasis on biomedical symptoms and subsequent pharmacological treatment has been encouraged at the expense of deeper psychological understanding. According to Frances, one of the dangers of using diagnosis as the sole focus of all treatment or support is that therapists ‘often adopt a symptom checklist approach’ (2014, p. 283). As a result, such a diagnosis-and-treat approach leads to a reductionist medicalisation of the human condition into surface symptoms, ignoring the intricate interplay of neurological function, personal psychology and family and social settings (Frances, 2013, 2014).
In a climate of reductionist medicalisation, we are reminded of reflective practice as buffer against the dominance of a technocratic, checklist approach in psychological practice. Writers such as Boud et al. (2013), Mezirow (1998) and Dewey (1938) have established a widely acknowledged corpus of work describing reflective practice as an epistemology that opposes a technocratic approach to practice. Critical reflection entails delving deeper into experiences and phenomena as they relate to both the individual and the larger social environment (Rowley et al., 2022). In the context of medicalisation, this means a renewed emphasis on the biopsychosocial conceptualisation of human experience, with the aim of transforming the existing diagnose-and-treat strategy into a more cautious and comprehensive evaluation approach. However, reflective practice requires a phenomenological style of attending to experience, specifically ontological openness and receptiveness, implying being sensitive to experience as embodied situatedness or being-in-the-world (Halling, 2012; Hansen, 2015; Maile, 2024). The awareness of existence as a unified experience (Husserl & Moran, 2012; Moran, 2013), also referred to as phenomenological consciousness, could therefore be considered a necessary professional competence. As Halling (2002) has commented in his discussion on teaching phenomenology as a style of attending:
Phenomenology deepens our appreciation for the depth and nuances of experience, whereas traditional psychology, in giving priority to theory and technique over experience, fosters an overvaluation of technical expertise. (p. 35)
The present paper contributes to the medicalisation discourse in the field of psychology education and training, specifically educational psychology, by demonstrating how embodied exercises like the career-focused genogram could assist students in cultivating phenomenological consciousness as future professionals. This is important because, without education and training in establishing phenomenological consciousness, student psychologists will be less equipped in their practice to navigate the unfathomable meaningfulness of human experience with nuanced understanding. Furthermore, developing a philosophically orientated educational psychology belongs to a pluralistic approach to psychology education and practices that values ambivalence, tentativeness and diagnosis equally.
This paper is organised as follows: The first section provides a brief discussion of the genogram as assessment and therapeutic tool. The next section outlines the self-reflective narrative as research methodology, including a Deweyan delineation of the narrative inquiry space particular to my investigation. The article ends with three specific reflections on the career-focused genogram as pedagogical method for encouraging phenomenological consciousness as a particular mindset.
The genogram as assessment and therapeutic tool
As human beings, we are situated in families of origin as well as choice. Our lives and engagement with others and the world are therefore not separated from our family system but are shaped and guided by our family as well as a larger socio-cultural history. Being a tool for therapeutic assessment and intervention, the genogram can assist people in becoming more aware of their interrelated historicity. Within the broader health and helping professions, the genogram is a visual depiction of the composition and structure of an individual’s family system spanning approximately three generations (Alexander et al., 2022). Genograms as therapeutic assessment and intervention tools are used to identify and explore the systemic influence of family history, cultural heritage, life events, relational dynamics, patterns of functioning and other family-related factors and characteristics on a person’s life, development and learning (McGoldrick et al., 2020).
The term ‘genogram’ originated in ancient Greek and refers to a drawn or written representation (‘gram’) of a family’s genealogy (‘geno’) (Schroder, 2015). The conventional genogram, as it is generally understood and used in family therapy, serves as an assessment tool for mapping and understanding family structure and history, hereditary and psychological factors, as well as relationship dynamics of mainly biologically related members across time (Tobias, 2018). Furthermore, the traditional genogram mostly focussed on the destructive aspects of relationships, distressing life events and individual pathology influencing a family system, often in the absence of strength-based and resilience-based characteristics as well as complex societal–historical transitions (Taylor et al., 2013). However, the contemporary genogram aims to map and describe more than simply an individual’s ancestry, namely biological or marital relatedness, as stated by McGoldrick et al. (2020). It also attempts to include broader socio-cultural influences central to the development of a person’s identity. Shifting perspectives on family recognise that relatedness encompasses more than family-of-origin history but also includes family-of-choice history as well as cultural and social relatedness (Carsten, 2012; Schneider, 2010).
Recent genogram developments allow greater flexibility and curiosity and include non-genetically related family members, such as extended family members, kinship supports and the larger community, as well as relational strengths, resilience, vulnerabilities, support networks and resources (Michiel-Derksen, 2022).
The original genogram has evolved into a valuable therapeutic intervention method for facilitating a deeper understanding of how transgenerational family patterns, including relationship dynamics, historical events and the larger sociocultural context, may influence an individual’s experience of the world in which they currently live and learn. Modern genograms track and explore the way that factors and characteristics have shaped family members’ identity and functioning generationally. Furthermore, the predominantly therapist-centred nature of the traditional genogram has made room for co-construction and client–therapist collaboration or self-created application of the genogram in learning about the connection between someone’s family history and personal life story (Joseph et al., 2023).
Since its inception as predominantly an assessment tool in the field of family therapy and in later years also as self-development tool, the continually developing genogram enables new and detailed insights into individuals’ past and present life experiences, as well as future growth and well-being possibilities (McGoldrick, 2016; Tobias, 2018). Benefits of the use of genograms, especially with children and young people, include ‘being a rich source of information; enhancing engagement, communication and rapport; improving self-awareness; identifying strengths within the family system and highlighting areas for intervention’ (Tobias, 2018, pp. 96–97). As a result of their dialogical and narrative character, contemporary genograms are regarded as culturally sensitive tools that can be utilised in socially diverse contexts, such as adoptive and foster care families as well as minority groups and trauma-exposed populations (Storlie et al., 2019). To this end, the traditional linear three-generation family model has been expanded to include more culturally appropriated genograms such as sociograms and the career-focused genogram.
Sociograms
The sociogram as therapeutic tool is used to gain insight into the sociodynamics of a particular family or system of social relationships (Andreyko & Subashkevych, 2020). A clear view of the family or social system is obtained in identifying and evaluating interpersonal relationships among members in terms of emotional closeness, availability of support and nature of communication. Exploring the overall quality of relationships and their impact on an individual’s identity, personal growth and decision-making processes is a critical component of the sociogram as therapeutic strategy (Giacomucci, 2021; Moreno, 1948). Besides personal characteristics, such as age, skill and occupation, the sociogram emphasises relational characteristics, including how members know one another, their shared knowledge, the nature of their communication and the quality and frequency of their interactions.
A sociogram depicts an individual’s family and other significant social relationships with circles representing the number of members. Certain criteria are used to obtain insight into a family, such as emotional closeness, the presence of support, communication style and the quality of relationships. Firstly, as outlined in Andreyko and Subashkevych (2020) and Giacomucci (2021), the size of the circles represents the importance of members in a person’s life, as perceived by that individual. In addition, the individual’s personal circle reflects possible high or low self-appraisal. Secondly, the locations of circles relative to one another as well as the distance between them provide an insight into the nature of member relationships. For example, the remoteness of a circle may indicate conflict or a sense of rejection, whereas circles overlaying or inside one another may suggest an undifferentiated identity. Thirdly, the arrangement of circles could offer insight regarding the emotional bond among members. Circles arranged in a linear order may suggest the absence of a warm relationship; however, freely arranged circles at varying distances from each other may show a degree of closeness among family members.
Career-focused genogram
Like the conventional genogram, the career-focused genogram describes the individual’s family tree over three generations. The career-focused genogram, which is co-created with a client, can be drawn, painted, built in the form of a collage or even sculpted in a sand tray using miniature objects (Parker-Bell & Osborn, 2023). With a career-focused genogram, however, the focus is on the work–life engagement, such as career satisfaction, work attitudes, interests and career-decision considerations of the members during their lives (Di Fabio, 2015). Furthermore, the career-focused genogram provides a pictorial presentation of an individual’s family career history, made up of a myriad of career–life-related elements such as career choices, life roles and beliefs, significant life events, occupations, work, career aspirations and perceived expectations, relational dynamics, strengths, resources and conflicts (Alexander et al., 2022). When clients are provided the opportunity to also view their career–life development as a socio-cultural process as opposed to mainly biologically determined, a deeper level of reflection becomes possible (Buxbaum & Hill, 2013; Joseph et al., 2023). The career-focused genogram allows for an in-depth exploration of the individual’s sociocultural background, career goals and aspirations, as well as their own and other people’s personal attributes, values and beliefs related to work that have been transmitted through generations (Di Fabio, 2010). As a reflective life–work engagement counselling tool, anchored in constructivist notions of self-awareness, self-reflection and personal meaning making, a career-focused genogram can enable individuals and therapists to discuss the often-unexamined influences of family career narratives as well as larger social systems, including extra-familial relations, peer associations and the broader socio-cultural environment on individuals’ understanding of their career development (Guichard, 2009; Maree, 2020; Savickas, 2020; Storlie et al., 2019). Student educational psychologists are trained to use the career-focused genogram as a self-exploratory tool that helps individuals to become aware of the substantial intergenerational familial as well as larger socio-cultural influences on their life–work comprehension, choices and decisions. Since I began training students in the application of the career-focused genogram as a part of connected life–work engagement counselling (Maree, 2025), I have become convinced that it is more than just an assessment and therapeutic tool.
In the following sections, I shall discuss my understanding of the career-focused genogram as embodied engagement and how I have reflected on it as a pedagogical strategy to encourage phenomenological consciousness in student educational psychologists.
Research methodology: Self-reflective narrative
Reflective practice, as defined by Boud and Walker (1991), Dewey (1986), Kolb (2014) and Schön (1983, 2016), is a deliberate process of contemplation and evaluation of experiences and events to generate transformed professional knowledge and insights. Bolton (2006) describes reflective practice as ‘the pearl-grit-in-the-oyster’ of education (p. 204) – a perspective characterised by intentionality and commitment that makes possible pedagogical improvement through continuous, meaningful exploration of teaching practices. When I, therefore, examine the how and why of teaching the career-focused genogram, I engage in a continuous learning and growth process. Bolton (2006) points out that an effective mode of reflective practice is through personal and professional narrative exploration.
In this study, I used a self-reflective narrative research approach, which allowed me to think more deeply about the pedagogical use of the career-focused genogram (Clandinin, 2006; Connely & Clandinin, 2006). Wei (2023) points out that narrative inquiry renders a sense of particularity and deep understanding that generalised abstractions cannot achieve. Thus, such an approach appears appropriate in the careful exploration of how the embodied career-focused genogram might be employed to foster phenomenological consciousness in student educational psychologists.
Narrative inquiry is based on Dewey’s theory of experience and builds upon the criteria of continuity, interaction and situation (Clandinin & Connely, 2000; Connely & Clandinin, 2006). According to Clandinin and Connely (2000), narrative inquirers are ‘in the midst of a three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, always situated somewhere along the dimensions of time, location, personal and societal’ (p. 144). These three components combine to create the narrative inquiry space of reciprocity, wherein the inquirer seeks to make sense of an experience while both shaping and being influenced by the meaning-making process (Figure 1).
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FIGURE 1: Deweyan delineation of the narrative inquiry space. |
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The first component of the narrative inquiry space is continuity, encompassing past, present and future experiences. All experiences are intrinsically linked and so continuing, having evolved from and influencing one another (Wei, 2023). The second component of the narrative inquiry space, called interaction, emphasises the relational character of the inquiry process. The narrative inquirer’s personal experiences are embedded in larger social, cultural and institutional conditions. The third component of the narrative inquiry space, which is situation, highlights how experiences are linked to a broader societal zeitgeist. The current study’s narrative inquiry space is thus a confluence of pedagogical experiences and impressions throughout the last decade that evolved from my concern for the development of student educational psychologists’ onto-phenomenological or embodied consciousness.
The following section will offer a Deweyan delineation of the narrative inquiry space particular to my investigation.
Three-dimensional narrative inquiry space
The component of continuity: A continuous pedagogical concern
My teaching experiences over the last decade have resulted in a more clearly articulated pedagogical perspective. Since my early years as a lecturer, teaching and training student educational psychologists, I have been fascinated by how my students explore and comprehend the psychological dilemma of being and becoming. A deep interest in human experience as inherently hermeneutic-phenomenological that is meaningful and intentional ‘engagement in a particular lifeworld reality situated in time, place and historicity’ (Conradie, 2024, p. 111) has gradually crystallised into the heart of my teaching – to evoke student educational psychologists’ sense of embodied consciousness.
The phenomenology of embodied awareness is based on the work of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (in Moran, 2013). Embodied consciousness as a philosophical approach refers to phenomenological involvement that is consciously sensitive to how the body or physicality and subjectivity exist as an interconnected and unified experience. Merleau-Ponty (1964, 2001) suggests that a unified experience involves the body inhabiting space and time as transcendental situatedness or the lived experience. This ‘interlocking network of intersubjectivity’ indicates an ontological relationship or a single stream of consciousness (Moran, 2013, p. 289). For Merleau-Ponty (in Moran, 2013), embodiment manifests itself ‘culturally and symbolically, in language, myths, stories and rituals’ (p. 292). In recent years, I have become interested in the way that the genogram can serve as a symbolic representation of embodied consciousness. This article discusses my reflection on viewing the career-focused genogram as a phenomenological embodied pedagogical gateway to encourage phenomenological consciousness among student educational psychologists.
The component of interaction: Relational knowing and doing
Dewey’s second component of narrative inquiry is interaction, which reminds us of the interconnectedness of experience – personal and circumstantial, individual and contextual (Clandinin & Connely, 2000; Connely & Clandinin, 2006). My personal teaching experiences are therefore embedded into a broader teaching and learning narrative that informs the module of Career Counselling, namely a learning-centred pedagogy. The aim of this approach is to foster a participatory learning community by emphasising students’ engagement in the learning process and their responsibility for it. Bremner (2021) states that a learning-centred approach is focused on learning as a collaborative endeavour whereby students take control over their learning and knowledge building, both individually and through their interactions with others.
The component of situation (context): A crisis of disconnect and fragmentation
As previously said (Section 3), the third component of the narrative inquiry space, namely situation, emphasises the connection between a larger societal zeitgeist and my (lecturer) pedagogical experiences and perceptions on the formation of student educational psychologists’ onto-phenomenological consciousness. The contemporary societal zeitgeist can be defined as a shift from the industrial age of acceleration, opportunity and progress to the mediatisation age of ecological fragmentation and disintegration (Chistyakov, 2021, p. 80–81; Han, 2022). Digital natives or generations raised with the internet are conditioned from an early age to a consumerist system whereby the value of everything is based on its commodification. This is because the present generation was born into a digitalised and social media world that is rife with frantic marketing, amassed information and constant communication (Alexander, 2004; Barter, 2023; Chistyakov, 2021; Morse & Blenkinsop, 2020).
In his publication Undinge (which can be translated into English as Non-things), notable philosopher Byung-Chul Han (2022) argues that the order of tangible objects of meaning, which contributed to the deeply human need for psychological grounding and substantiality, is rapidly being displaced by the digital order, which mainly favours the amassing of data and information, ‘leaving humans disembodied’ (p. 5) and ecologically disconnected. According to Byung-Chul Han (in Morgan, 2023), mediatisation constitutes a lifeform, a particular reality in which the real or ‘that which is authentic’ (p. 318), is transformed into the artificial: communicating without community, collecting information without gaining insight and accumulating followers without encountering others.
Han (2020) suggests that within a consumerist culture, reality is mainly perceived in terms of ‘short-lived information, as opposed to lingered perception’ (p. 7). Unequivocally foregrounded is the informatisation of human lifeworlds; thus a reality that is mainly perceived in terms of ephemeral information consumption, as opposed to interpreted experience. Within such a consumerist culture, people are deprived of experiences that are often defined by embodied consciousness that is rooted in time, space and historicity. This deeply psychological loss leaves humans disembodied and ecologically disconnected.
As a lecturer, I fear that students will become less and less appreciative of cultivating a sense of embodied consciousness in a society that is becoming ever more immersed in digital informatisation and consumerism. Phenomenological engagement highlights the meaningfulness and tenderness of the lifeworld reality, as opposed to just concrete registering and measuring of sensations or perceptions from the outer world. Woven into the embodied consciousness disposition is the empathic attitude, which can be defined as an intentional concern with our own as well as another’s life-world experience (Zahavi, 2004). In the context of professional psychology, the empathetic attitude or being sensitively aware of our own psychological landscape and behaviour as well as how we view others and the world that we share is certainly part of the repertoire of qualities that a psychologist should possess.
Reflections on the career-focused genogram as pedagogical method for encouraging phenomenological consciousness
Ortlipp (2008) and Thorpe (2010) argue that using a teacher journal to observe our own thinking and to become aware of specific pedagogical insights over time allows us to monitor and improve our teaching. For this investigation, reflection was conducted at the end of each lecture by utilising a reflective teaching journal and teaching notes. While writing in my teaching journal, I became increasingly aware of the career-focused genogram as a pedagogical strategy to evoke student educational psychologists’ sense of phenomenological consciousness.
A content analysis of the reflections in my reflective teaching journal and teaching notes was conducted using a grounded-theory strategy. Content analysis provides researchers with numerous significant advantages, one of which is a content-sensitive strategy that is more concerned with meaning and context than with simple data description or counting (Krippendorff, 2018). A grounded-theory strategy involves the emergence of theoretical knowledge and insights that are underpinned by my teaching reflections and narrations and have been systematically examined and analysed (Glaser, 2011; Noble & Mitchell, 2016). My teaching reflections were analysed for themes related to the embodied career-focused genogram as a pedagogical method for encouraging phenomenological consciousness in student educational psychologists. Three distinct themes emerged from a global analysis of the reflections in my teaching journal: Theme 1. The genogram as metaphorical function of the phenomenological orientation, Theme 2. The self-constructed career-focused genogram as an embodied engagement practice and Theme 3. The career-focused genogram as an integrated life–career ecology as shown in Figure 2.
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FIGURE 2: Global analysis of the reflections in my teaching journal. |
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The genogram as metaphorical function of the phenomenological orientation
The genogram acts as a metaphor of the phenomenology of embodiment; in other words, a symbolic manifestation of the interwovenness of the bodily or physicality and subjectivity as an ‘undivided, unitive consciousness’ (Blackstone, 2021, p. 36). Such an embodied experience implies that the bodiliness of family members represented in a genogram is no longer just in a particular contextual space or time; it rather inhabits these as transcendental situatedness – the lived body or the lived experience (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, 2001). Hence, career–life development is not an objective entity to be described only in terms of patterns, characteristics and events but is rather a subjective and relational enactment (imaginative involvement) anchored in structures of experience, such as language (story), place (internal, psychological experience and context), temporality (past, present, future) and historicity (being part of historical unfolding or actuality) (Conradie, 2024, p. 112). For Merleau-Ponty (in Moran, 2013), embodiment manifests itself ‘culturally and symbolically, in language, myths, stories and rituals’ (p. 292). Thus, the phenomenology of embodiment is manifested in the genogram. The implication is that the career-focused genogram serves as more than just an assessment tool or exercise; it also encapsulates the phenomenological condition of embeddedness and relationality.
The following theme indicates a connection between the self-constructed genogram and the embodiment thesis of transcendent situatedness (lived experience) rooted in the bodily or physicality of being in the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, 2001).
The self-constructed career-focused genogram as an embodied engagement practice
The effective use of self-constructed genograms in therapist training to encourage improved insight and increased self-awareness has been well documented (Connolly, 2005; Lim, 2008). The self-constructed career-focused genogram can thus be used as a vehicle through which students can explore and develop insight into their own embodied ways of being, knowing and doing. Assigning students the task of self-constructing a career-focused genogram related to the structures of experience, including language, place, temporality and historicity (Ricoeur, 1979), enables them to inhabit a particular situatedness or livingness. In other words, students’ sense of being-in-the-world (Husserl & Moran, 2012; Moran, 2000), the skill of deeply relating with oneself, can be stimulated through the lens of their own family narratives. While creating their genograms, students ask themselves the following questions: What does it mean to be a human being (a member) and within this world (family)? What is happening right now? What is being experienced? In this way, the self-constructed genogram is recognised as embodied engagement, shifting from a predominantly instrumentalist assessment tool to embodied undergoing – consciously experiencing the livingness of life–work engagement.
The career-focused genogram as an integrated career–life ecology
As a result of the intricate and dynamic intersection of uniquely inner (personal) and outer (social or world) environments, the career-focused genogram symbolises an ecosystem – an integrated, meaningful career–life reality (Maree & Di Fabio, 2018). Although career counselling is often aimed at facilitating individual professional growth, such personal career development initiatives ought to be deeply tied to one’s relationship with the world, particularly if the intention is to serve a collective, therefore, just and sustainable purpose (Carosin et al., 2021). Guichard (2018, 2020) presents a timely argument for career counselling interventions that encourage the establishment of ecologically sustainable lifeworld realities for all humans compared to merely including some individuals in existing salaried employment systems. Indeed, career–life development exists as an interconnected, embodied situatedness that encompasses the lifespan, as opposed to a hierarchical and meticulously decided set of jobs (Guichard, 2022; Maree, 2024; Savickas et al., 2009).
Guichard asserts that career counselling interventions grounded in ecological sustainability ideals such as social fairness and dignity inspire individuals to contemplate, ‘What can I do to contribute to a decent and equitable collective life?’ (2022, p. 583). The genogram’s inherently integrated character renders it an appropriate teaching tool for exploring the phenomenologist concept of embodiment awareness. Such a phenomenologically oriented pedagogy prioritises an interconnected and shared-planet reality, with an emphasis on the intrinsic value of life, labour and relationships rather than their status as resources or commodities for consumption (Figure 2).
Conclusion
Human beings have a deep desire for phenomenological experience, which is to be intentionally aware of the significance of what they are living through in everyday life. The philosophical orientation of phenomenological consciousness can thus be defined as an ontological openness towards attending to and comprehending complex human experience. Using a self-reflective narrative inquiry approach, this paper tells of my understanding of applying the career-focused genogram as a pedagogical strategy to promote embodied engagement and phenomenological consciousness among student educational psychologists.
Phenomenological consciousness is vital for professional reflection and can be taught to student educational psychologists (Erlandson, 2014; Hansen, 2015; Maile, 2024). This article has shown that the self-constructed career-focused genogram, as an embodied, ontological learning activity, can be incorporated into educational psychology education programmes to promote the development of phenomenological consciousness.
The findings offer a contextual perspective to existing literature on the importance of a philosophically orientated educational psychology curriculum as alternative to a technicist diagnose-and-treat curriculum. Future research on the teaching and training of student educational psychologists should explore trainees’ perspectives on developing phenomenological awareness in order to approach their work with greater depth and nuance.
The genogram, as a symbol, is a natural carrier of embodied lifeworld situatedness and has the potential to be used not just as an assessment and therapeutic tool but also as an enactment of the phenomenological condition of embeddedness and relationality. By doing so, lecturers will be able to foster phenomenological consciousness in student educational psychologists. Furthermore, the career-focused genogram as enactment of the phenomenological condition of embeddedness can be used to promote a pluralistic psychology education that values both scientific and philosophically oriented approaches towards understanding and appreciating the depth and nuance of matters related to the lifeworld.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the language editor for the editing of the text and the reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive recommendations.
Competing interests
The author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article.
Author’s contributions
K.C. declares that they are the sole author of this research article.
Ethical considerations
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
Funding information
The author received no financial support from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author, K.C.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are the product of professional research. It does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency or that of the publisher. The author is responsible for this article’s results, findings and content.
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Footnote
1. Career Psychology is part of a Master of Educational Psychology course at a South African university that prepares student educational psychologists to register with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). The module ‘Career Psychology’ explores a broad understanding of the diverse theory base of career psychology, with the aim of preparing student educational psychologists to formulate a theoretically sound and integrative case conceptualisation, while also developing a road map for practising career counselling and assessment. This should enable students, with proper psychometric training and practical experience, to conduct theoretically integrative career counselling. The aim of integrative career counselling is to help people see their life–work reality as dignified and meaningful (Maree & Di Fabio, 2018).
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