Conflict Management Strategies of Career Counsellors

Abstract

In everyday professional life, career counsellors are confronted with a variety of conflict situations. These conflicts are not related to clients only but also to problems with colleagues, with a service provider or with the team management. For the research group “behaviours of adolescents and young adults in their vocational and study orientation phase and their training and study success”, it was important to use the co-ping questionnaire for counsellors to find out which areas of conflict the 346 counsellors surveyed were confronted with, which coping strategies they used, how they assessed these strategies and what connections these behaviours had with personal attitudes and positions. The three most noticeable areas of stress for counsellors were problems with adolescents under 25 years of age and adults over 25 as well as problems with colleagues. Respondents reported that such events were perceived as unpleasant/stressful and were of great significance to them. According to a self-assessment, 72% of the counsellors were able to cope successfully with the problem. The predictability and duration of such problems had only a secondary influence on successful coping.