How to choose your career: Interview with Dr. Lynn Friedman
In 2018, I published a book about how to choose your career. In 2024, I moved the content to this site. Below is the interview with Dr. Lynn Friedman.
Career indecision seems like a very, very common life challenge for a lot of people. In your experience as a psychoanalyst, psychologist, and workplace expert, why do so many people struggle with this?
There are several reasons. Typically, work-life conflicts break down into three kinds of difficulties: First, the person is uncertain as to what they want to do. Second, they know what they want to do, but they are uncertain as to how to develop a plan for achieving it. And third, they know what they want and they have a plan, but they can’t seem to galvanize themselves to implement it.
The most prevalent reason for career indecision is that people have not been exposed to the panoply of options available to them. Often, during the crucial college or high school years, they were busy with other things, like sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Or they may come from a different culture where the career development process is very different. Either they weren’t focused on learning more about possible options or by virtue of their background, they were unaware of the plethora of options that exist. For these folks, reading useful career books, consulting their university career counselor, and talking to their professors can be very helpful.
For others, the basis of this uncertainty is more complex and may signal an internal conflict. Here’s an example: Young adults, children of the affluent, may have a very difficult time identifying their career goals. Sometimes these families emphasize achievement instead of fulfillment. They may focus on high grades, high board scores and, as one young person put it, “resume builders,” rather than on helping the individual figure out what they love. This is unfortunate inasmuch as it can leave the child (and ultimately the young adult) more concerned with pleasing others than with figuring out where their passion lies. Ultimately, young adults are more likely to find career happiness if as children they get the message from their parents that they can do (nearly) anything that they want with hard work. And that their family will provide encouragement and emotional support.
Just to make this explicit, parents with a heavy focus on achievement might, for example, say, “You will take piano lessons every week because we want you to have an appreciation of the arts.” Never mind that the child is tone deaf, hates piano, and longs to be on the football field. The child may dutifully comply. But he doesn’t find it fulfilling.
Of course, for the right child, piano lessons can be a beautiful thing. Take, for example, the child whose parents regularly find him pounding on the piano in a state of bliss. They might offer him the possibility of lessons, noting that he will have to practice. Once the offer is accepted, they might encourage and applaud him while helping him to set aside time to practice. These are parents who are following the child rather than leading him, supporting him in finding his own passion. They are responding to his passions, not imposing their passions upon him.
The former child may be dutiful in his practice but he does not express any sort of delight. And, unconsciously, he may build up a wellspring of deep and abiding resentment, particularly if the handling of the piano lessons is emblematic of how his parents typically respond to his wants and desires.
These are the young people who you read about who graduated from Ivy League colleges and are now living in their parents’ basement or are working a job for which they are grossly over-qualified. They may require psychotherapy or even psychoanalysis to become aware of and to resolve their career conflict. In treatment, hopefully, they will begin to learn what they like and what they don’t. Also, they will need to become aware of and grapple with the depth of their resentment toward their parents.
Another subgroup of people who may have a difficult time are those who have been so bound up in taking care of others that they have not learned to focus on what they feel, what they want, or what they need. Instead, they have been concentrating on taking care of their parents and other family members. I have in mind children who grow up with parents or siblings who are physically or mentally ill, substance abusers, or even just terribly self-absorbed. Often, these children are shouldering massive adult-like responsibilities. Usually, the idea of identifying their own feelings never occurred to them. This is problematic because knowing what one feels and what one likes is a requisite to identifying career goals.
Some people secretly know what they want but they are unable to acknowledge it even to themselves. They feel they aren’t good enough or they don’t deserve to have it. Years later they say, “I was afraid to say it out loud, even to myself.” Some people are really out of touch with their feelings so they don’t know what they love or hate. You meet them and they don’t have hobbies and they don’t know their interests.
Because the genesis of career difficulties can be so complex, prior to embarking on a course of career coaching I do a psychoanalytically informed career assessment. I should mention that this approach is probably a reflection of my experience and my clientele. Historically, I have tended to see people who have already had unsuccessful experiences with career coaches. In fact, often my referrals come from skilled career coaches. Also, many of these individuals have attempted to clarify their career goals by reading career books. Some report that they are unable to follow through on the exercises while others complete the exercises and still find themselves unable to clarify their career goals.
I should note that, over the years, I have noticed a shift in who seeks out a psychoanalytically informed career assessment. I think that the public, at least where I practice, has become much more sophisticated. Now I have young people and mid-career people showing up in my office telling me, “I think that I probably need career coaching but I want a complete psychological evaluation so that I make sure that I’m not avoiding an underlying conflict.”
Can you say more about the psychoanalytically informed career assessments that you do?
I attempt to understand the career conflict in the same way I would understand any other psychological concern. I carefully and thoughtfully take a school and career history. I want to know what the worlds of school and work have been like for the individual and for his family. What messages did the family convey about these worlds? What sorts of career and school experiences were modeled in the family and the extended family? How did their parents fare in the world of work? What did their parents do? What do their siblings do? What lessons were they taught formally or vicariously?
For the individual, what are the advantages of resolving her work-life conflict? What would success mean to her? How would it affect her role in her family of origin? In her current relationships? And I ask the harder question: “What are the downsides to success?”
For example, decades ago I had an outstanding student who was procrastinating on applying to graduate school. When I inquired about this, she finally reluctantly was able to tell me that if she became a psychologist, she would out-earn her husband. She was afraid that he would find it intolerable to have a wife who made more money than he did and she feared that he would leave her. Her ability to articulate this fear opened the door for her and her husband to seek couples counseling from an area clinician.
Similarly, decades ago I treated a very bright high school student who was flunking out. His father, whom he adored, had never completed high school. Unconsciously, he was terrified of outstripping his father. Once that became apparent, I was able to work with the family to address and allay his fears.
In any case, from a psychoanalytically informed assessment I can generally clarify the nature of the conflict and what sort of intervention might be helpful. And I make very specific detailed recommendations as to what sort of help would be most useful in helping a person to master the conflict.
You write about the difference between coaching, therapy, and psychoanalysis. Can you advise us about the differences between these and how clients can decide what type of help would best assist them in career decision-making?
I see people in work-life consultation if the person’s difficulty can be ameliorated with short intervention in which each week the person commits to taking small steps to meeting their goal. While this approach can be valuable for many people, particularly those who have not had much exposure or modeling as to how to go about pursuing work-life goals, it is not useful for everyone.
Take, for example, the individual who has read numerous career books, attempted career exercises, taken a battery of a career tests, but remains stymied. The fact that none of the self-help efforts have proved effective is a warning sign that career coaching is not likely to be comprehensive enough to help that type of individual.
In fact, it can be enormously frustrating, particularly in a group, where the individual witnesses other people making progress but finds himself unable to change. For this type of individual, career coaching is not helpful because the true conflicts are outside of their awareness. A deeper approach aimed at bringing the conflict into awareness, where it can be resolved, is more likely to prove effective. Ideally, people in this situation should seek a psychoanalytically informed assessment to evaluate whether psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis might be effective in helping them to fulfill their personal and professional goals.
You mentioned psychoanalysis. Doesn’t that take a long time? And isn’t it terribly expensive?
Yes. Let’s talk first about the length of treatment. It can take a long time. Most psychoanalyses take several years. Patients meet with their psychoanalyst several times a week, usually four or five. Typically, people enter psychoanalysis because they are self-sabotaging some aspect of their career or their relationships.
These are usually people with real strengths in some areas. For example, they may have longstanding friendships. Or they may be very bright and talented but something has been getting in the way of their success or happiness for years. They embark on a psychoanalysis because they want to resolve their difficulties in a full and comprehensive way and because a less intensive treatment won’t do the job. And—this is very important — they have the emotional strength to endure the rigors of a psychoanalysis.
Generally, a person has to have a certain amount of psychological health to benefit from psychoanalysis, although they may not feel so healthy when they begin. Anyone in analysis has to be able to tolerate being challenged to examine themselves. They have to hang in there and tell their psychoanalyst what they are really thinking. And, they must strive to do this even when the feelings are uncomfortable, awkward, or embarrassing. They must report sadness, or rage or tenderness, whatever they feel.
Of course, not everyone who needs treatment needs psychoanalysis. Some can make very good use of a less intensive treatment such as psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This means meeting one to three times a week over a period of several years. However, in these cases, it can be important to be evaluated by a psychoanalyst who can assess which sort of intervention is optimal. Today, most analysts provide psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. And, where the central struggle involves career, I think that it’s important to find an analyst who is knowledgeable about that, too.
Please comment about the cost, because many people find that part daunting.
Yes. It can be expensive. However, nearly every psychoanalytic institute offers sliding scale analysis. At my institute, people can be seen for as little as $15 a session, sometimes even less. At these clinics, fees are based on an individual’s income.
Often, people consult me for a psychoanalytically informed career assessment. When I recommend psychoanalysis and their resources are limited, I am usually able to help them find someone at a fee that they can afford. Training institutes often offer very low fees. Although this is available in most major cities, I realize that it may not be available in a place where there are no psychoanalytic institutes. Often, people call me to try to help them to identify resources in their locale. I’m always happy to help if I can.
Can you please say more about what you do when you ascertain that someone is a good candidate for career coaching rather than psychotherapy or psychoanalysis?
Although my work is always informed by my training as a psychoanalyst, I provide career coaching when the problems are discrete and focal. For example, I might teach interviewing skills, or I might help someone to change careers or manage their boss. I coach clients who are building or growing service-oriented businesses.
Beyond this, I work with coaches who would like to learn to think psychoanalytically about their coaching clients. As a consultant, I help skilled psychologists, psychoanalysts, and other clinicians to establish and grow their practices.
Similarly, a number of organizational leaders in the corporate and not-for-profit world seek me out for organizational coaching. I really enjoy that. For many years I’ve worked with the heads of independent schools and educational associations around building healthy schools and organizations. I value this work because it is an opportunity to have a positive impact on the entire organizational culture.
What interventions do you recommend for someone who has no idea what type of work to pursue?
It depends where they are in their journey. If they are on a college campus, I’d encourage them to take courses that look interesting to them and to establish relationships with their professors. Also, it can be very helpful to make use of the college career services office. If they feel stymied, they might seek out the college’s counseling center, too. Also, they might make it a point to talk to their parents, their parents’ friends and their friends’ parents. All of these people can be very helpful resources.
If they aren’t in college, I recommend that they look through college catalogs anyway, and figure out how to sample classes. I recommend that they read and do the exercises in career coaching books such as What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles or Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want by Barbara Sher.
Beyond this, many colleges offer free or low-cost career counseling services to alumni. If they are considering starting their own business, I’d recommend contacting the Small Business Development Center in their community. Their services are often free.
My website publishes articles about the career journey and I refer people to it. The articles include information about how to figure out what you want to do and how to go do it. It also includes ideas about what sort of help is available if you get stuck.
What can parents and educators do differently to help young people make good career decisions?
They can decrease the emphasis on achievement and college decisions designed to impress others and focus instead on helping children figure out who they are and what they like and what they don’t like. Let them develop skills in as many areas as possible so they can make decisions from a place of competency. Ideally, the emphasis should not be on grades or prestigious schools. Instead, the thrust should be on building character, integrity, and a sense of self-efficacy.
Help children to identify and pursue the things that they love while having realistic and appropriate expectations around meeting family, school, and community responsibilities. The message ought to be that the young person is expected to move toward adulthood and increased autonomy. Kids need to know they are expected to get marketable skills and get a job. They can major in whatever they want, but they need a plan to develop basic skills in writing, presentation, data management, and/or computers, so that they have something to offer to employers. They need applied experience in whatever interests them. Also, I’d encourage parents to model community service and to undertake projects as a family that can benefit the community.
In another vein, parents need to let children have the experience of failure while they are still under the family’s roof. The tendency of many parents to swoop in and fix everything is a big mistake. It leads to children who have no idea how to fix things for themselves. And it leads to children who have few skills for dealing with what is sometimes an unfair world. Kids need to have the experience of failing and recovering from it. Sometimes you don’t get the lead in the play or make the team—it may not even be fair, but it happens and you can survive it.
Dr. Lynn Friedman is a clinical psychologist, a board certified Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst, a work-life (career) consultant, and a Johns Hopkins faculty member. Dr. Friedman welcomes inquiries about evaluation, career coaching, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, consultation and supervision.
