Counseling Client Interviews

For the purposes of this assignment, two subjects were chosen to be interviewed. The subjects were to meet the criteria of landing within the age ranges of early adulthood (18-39) and middle adulthood (40-59). The interviews were conducted in three parts. Part one consisted of questions dealing primarily with the individual’s decision making, part two consisted of questions attempting to gauge the relative life satisfaction of the individual and part three consisted of questions regarding mortality of the individual and loved ones. What follows is a summary of the interviews conducted and analyzation regarding the application of counseling psychology.

The first interview was conducted upon the early adult, a 23 year old female of Caucasian descent: What major decisions have you had to make in the past few years? “I’ve had to make a lot of major decisions in the past few years, a lot more than I would have liked to. Where to go to school, applying for scholarship after scholarship to try and get some money to help facilitate getting me into those schools, picking a major, moving out after graduation, riding the fence about grad school, life has been a total blur.” How did you select your career goals? “I selected my career goals based on what I thought was going to make me happy… I chose a subject I liked. Twice. Initially, I was a fashion design major, which of course angered the crap out of my parents. It wasn’t actually a very fulfilling major, though, and I was starting to have second thoughts about being at Ball State and my job prospects for after graduation. So, I did some soul searching and decided what I really enjoyed was geopolitics. Hell of a shift, huh? So I came home, applied to the University of Loyola at Chicago, got accepted and finished out my bachelors there. I had to retake my entire sophomore year, so my student loans are just gratuitous beyond belief, but I think it was worth it in the long run.” What resources did you consult in making your decisions? “Resources? Like books or are we including people? Because most of the “resources” I consulted were called mom and dad, with maybe a friend thrown in here or there. There was also a string of college “Dummies” books I went through on my major, too, just to get the gist of it, and to make sure it was what I was looking for.” In retrospect, did you make the right decisions? “Honestly, no. My very first inclination, that I was going to go away to Ball State University and have the time of my life and come out the other end as this fashion designer who would have job prospects was actually pretty naïve. Making new friends was never an issue, but keeping them sort of was, especially when that particular group liked to go out and drink as much as they did. I was underage, my grades were slipping, school was costing a fortune because it was out of state and I was having doubts about what I wanted to do with my life. The best decision I ever made with regards to college was to come home. I was a mess out there, and I really wouldn’t have been proud of graduating with a major in fashion design. It’s something I enjoy, sure, but it’s just a hobby. Nearly everyone these days is identified with their occupation, and I absolutely didn’t want to be identified with something I wasn’t going to be proud of.” What would you change? “Nearly everything that went on in that first year (laughs). No, I would change a lot, and that doesn’t just extend to my years in college. I think, if given the chance to move out of the house all over again, I would have waited. I sort of burdened myself with the obligations of living expenses and a full time job when I absolutely didn’t need to. I felt suffocated at home though, it felt bad to have to graduate and come home immediately. What’s worse, I punted on grad school after I got into my second choice program at NYU. Specifically because the additional loans from having to live out there would have seen me living at home after my graduate degree as well. Luckily, I got to defer my acceptance to next fall, so we’ll just have to see what happens. I’d like to go, but I don’t know that I want to work a full time job and go to school on top of it, and living in New York is incredibly expensive.” What decisions are you facing now? “Pretty much just that last one. I kind of hate my job, despite the pay and benefits being great. Living in the city is getting old, seeing as my family my job and my boyfriend are all in the suburbs, though I petitioned to be transferred to the downtown office, so that will be nice, if and when it happens.” Has your approach to decision making changed in the last few years? “I’d like to think it has. Where before I was a little bit more focused on what I thought would make me happy, and my decision making process mainly consisted of asking myself what I wanted and needed to do, I’m more apt to go ask my parents or others I know for guidance, and I think that’s just a maturity thing. When you’re a kid, you think you know everything, and to some extent I’m still a kid and still think that. Little by little, though, your confidence in that type of narcissism begins to erode, and you find yourself opening up to people and asking for help in ways you would never have permitted yourself to do before. It’s nice, to be able to go to someone with a problem and have two brains working on it instead of one.”

How satisfied are you with your life today? “I’m okay, I think (laughs). It could be better, could be worse. Mostly I’m just thankful I have a decent job and a roof over my head. I could be working three waiting jobs attempting to make ends meet; instead of have a nice nine to fiver in an office. It still sucks, but at least I get to sleep more and have some free time.” Is it better or worse than you expected when you were younger? “Worse, definitely. When you’re younger, you think being an adult is all about the freedom, when in reality it’s all about the responsibility. That’s the tradeoff. That doesn’t mean I would go back to being a kid, though. Nobody wants to be told when to go to bed, what to wear, how to act, what you can and can’t do. Having a curfew. It sucks. Now, though, now I can eat ice cream for breakfast whenever the hell I want to. Now I can stay up all night watching TV or going out with friends. Trouble is, when you’re finally old enough to do that stuff, you don’t want to.” What was (is) the happiest period of your life? “I would have to say the present. No more school to go through, save for the elective graduate degree. No more technical hurdles, really. It’s just me and the world, and I can become whatever I want to within that mold. I just have to pick a direction and run with it. I have an amazing boyfriend who I’ve been with for 6 months now, and it’s moving incredibly fast. He came on a family vacation with me and is talking about us moving in together… I couldn’t be happier with regards to my personal relationships. Things are going really well.” What was the unhappiest period of your life? “High School.” Why? “Anyone who says high school is the best time of your life either doesn’t remember what high school was like, or their just full of shit. Think about it: You’re forced every morning to go to a building with a small armies worth of people who are physically adults and psychologically children. However, they’re expected to act like adults and are treated like adults, with absolutely none of the benefits of actually being one. Meanwhile, you have this massive influx of hormones, something you’ve never before experienced before making your mind and body go crazy. Add on top of this the massive amounts of homework you’re given, as if each teacher somehow thinks you don’t have eight other classes to pay attention to, and it’s no wonder the highest rates of suicide can be found between the ages of 14 and 18.” Are you looking forward to the next few decades? “Absolutely, yes.” Why? “If I end up going to grad school, I’ll be in a great position to start applying to entry level occupations with the CIA or the State Department, somewhere I can put the geopolitics study and linguistics skills to good use. What I really want to do, though, is get involved with Human Rights Watch. I was president of the local chapter of “Free the Slaves,” a human trafficking abolition group, in college, and I think that’s really what I would like to get involved in. At some point I’m probably going to get married and have kids… it’s really weird to think about stuff like that, but the fact remains that even ONE decade from now, I’m going to be 33 years old. 33! That seems crazy to me. Describe some of your plans for the future. Okay, here goes: Get my master’s degree, find a job in my career field, probably serve in clandestine service for four to five years, get married, have kids, maybe teach or roll my previous experience into an opportunity at Human Rights Watch. Other than that, I don’t know.

What do you think about your own mortality? I actually don’t. Like at all (laughs). I’m so busy these days, I don’t think I ever really stop and consider death. It seems like such farfetched nonsense, the fact that someday, I’m just going to stop working. It’s eerie to think about, it just doesn’t seem real to me. It’s so far off. What do you think of the mortality of your loved ones? That’s something I revisit on a much more regular basis. Weird how that works, “it can’t happen to me, but I should worry about everyone else,” mentality. What do I think about it…? I don’t want it to happen, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. I pretty much just make sure I can visit my family as much as humanly possible. When something like that does happen, I don’t want to be the one left saying “I wish I had seen them more often.” What influences your thoughts about death? (Religion, family, culture, etc.) “I didn’t grow up in a very religious family at all. We’re all confirmed catholic, both mom and dad came from catholic families, but my dad is pretty much an agnostic-atheist and my mom believes in an afterlife minus all the dogma. So I guess I could say I’m influenced by my pseudo-religious beliefs, in that I was never truly a practicing Christian, but it’s definitely instilled in me this idea that there’s someplace we go after we die. What that is, I’m not sure I know.”

The second interview subject was a 49 year old male of Caucasian descent: What major decisions have you had to make in the past few years? “I have three college age kids I need to think about getting through school, so the decision to sign my life away in loans (laughs). Refinancing the mortgage, I was laid off last summer and had to find another position with a different engineering firm, a lot. A lot of decisions. They just keep coming!” How did you select your career goals? “Well, I initially wanted to be an architect. This was in 1981, the economy wasn’t doing so hot and people just weren’t looking to put up buildings. So, I switched to civil engineering. My rationale, was that people are always going to need infrastructure and to maintain that infrastructure, whether times are good or bad. So I went for the more stable job.” What resources did you consult in making your decisions? “Which ones? If we’re talking about school, then I guess my parents and my friends. If we’re talking about life afterwards, I would say my wife.” In retrospect, did you make the right decisions? “I think so, yeah. I’ve never been out of a job for more than a month or two. I love my wife and my kids. Things get stressful sometimes, and I wonder if I would have been happier just going with architecture, but the occupations are functionally the same and I’m pretty happy overall.” What would you change? “I would never have kids (laughs). I’m kidding. I’m not sure what I would change. I don’t think there’s anything that’s a problem today that I could have had a direct hand in changing.” What decisions are you facing now? Well, I’m coming up on fifty, so there’s decisions about my health… decisions about my kids and their college expenses, decisions about whether to sell my wife’s car and get her a new one, it’s a piece of crap and eats gas like none other.” Has your approach to decision making changed in the past few years? Not particularly, no. I like to think of myself as a pragmatist, and I generally just go with the most logical option.”

How satisfied are you with your life today? “Pretty satisfied. I have a nice house, a nice car, a big back yard, a good job, a family I love, we go on vacation twice a year, once for fun, once to see family and I’m still healthy enough at 49 to play in a 16 inch softball league every summer. Not sure I could ask for more than that. Is it better or worse than you expected when you were younger? “I don’t know what I expected to be at fifty when I was younger. That’s a little too far into the future for younger people to look, I think. I would venture to say it’s probably better, because I don’t think I could have thought of all of the good things in my life today when I was younger, simply because I had no point of reference. What was (is) the happiest period of your life? “The present. I’m at that age now where I’m established enough that I generally won’t have to worry about a job or money ever again. I’m also still young enough that I can enjoy it (laughs).” What was the unhappiest period of your life? “The first time I proposed to my wife, she said no (laughs). That wasn’t exactly a good time. I think the year my father died, too. That was easily one of the worst periods I’ve ever experienced.” Are you looking forward to the next decades? “How many decades do you think I have left (laughs)?” Why? “I’m looking forward to them, sure. The best thing I can do from here on out is make sure I have as many retirement years as humanly possible. You work your whole life, you forget what it’s like to have so much leisure time. Hopefully I’ll be able to experience all of that in the next 15 years or so.” Describe some of your plans for the future. Get my kids through college. Pay off their loans until we can hand them off. Looking forward to grandkids, we have two little nieces and nephews right now by my wife’s younger cousin who moved out here a few years ago, and they’re great.

What do you think about your own mortality? It honestly crosses my mind more and more lately. My father passed away when he was 51, and I just hope I can make it past that mark for the sake of my family. That’s entirely too young. What do you think of the mortality of your loved ones? That’s something I try not to think about. If something ever happened to my wife or kids, I would be absolutely devastated. Let them worry about me, not the other way around (laughs). What influences your thoughts about death? (Religion, family, culture, etc.) I was baptized and confirmed Catholic growing up, but I was never really a practicing religious person. I went to Catholic schools from high school all the way on up through college, but it just never seemed to be anything more than nonsense to get people through the day. Some people just can’t handle that there’s nothing to defend them from terrible things happening. It scares them. Does that mean their beliefs are invalid? Not at all, whatever makes them happy. I just don’t believe anything is going to save them when things get tough but them.

My reactions to the completed interviews of both individuals were mostly due in part to the differences between their current issues, forecasts for the future and stances on mortality. While the early adult was concerned with establishing herself in the world and making certain she achieved what she set out to achieve, the middle adult took the stance that what he had done was enough, simply because he was happy. Additionally, the early adult was less satisfied with her life than the middle adult, something that could be contributed to a myriad of factors; millennials, as a group, are noted for having a decidedly more cynical outlook than previous generations, while the middle adult, who was a baby boomer, seemed to not only be happy with his current place in life, but was optimistic about the future as well, despite having a potentially shorter period of time in which to enjoy his future. The early adult was decidedly more focused on the prospect of what she could have previously changed to make her current situation more favorable, whereas the middle adult gave answers to the interview questions that indicated a less regretful state, while looking for ways he could improve the future for both himself and his family. Finally, the reactions to the question of their own mortality was almost the complete opposite in the two subjects, as the early adult expressed a desire not to think about her own, as it didn’t seem “real” to her and that it produced an eerie, surreal feeling. The middle adult, meanwhile was complicit in his knowledge that death was just something that happened. Instead, he was much more concerned with the mortality of his family and loved ones, as they seemed to be more important to him than his own life in the grand scheme of things. Interestingly enough, the early adult was not as shaken by the question of the mortality of her loved ones, as she only wished to see them as much as possible before the inevitable took place.