Career Counseling For Midlife Professionals
Turning Lemons into Lemonade
Midlife is a time of transition in which many people change careers either by choice or circumstances. People who had a satisfying and stable career for years either find they no longer have a job or begin to become bored and dissatisfied with their career. For others it is a question of whether to retire or shift to part-time work, perhaps to care for aging parents.
Due to the meaning and identity people derive from their work, whatever the precipitating factor, midlife career challenges can be traumatic and lead to an existential crisis. Mid-life career unrest can produce feelings of loss, uncertainty, hopelessness and worthlessness. Many feel depressed and experience emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, despair, and shame.
Pastoral counseling can help people transform their midlife career crisis into a time of growth and development. Kathleen E. Scheg, who became a pastoral counselor after a successful 25-year career as a lawyer, offers a seven-week series of workshops designed to enhance the personal growth and career development of midlife professionals. In addition to providing career assessment and skill development components, the workshops integrate spirituality and body-centered psychotherapy to facilitate each participant's midlife career transition. As Jung stated: "Among all my patients in the second half of life-that is to say, over thirty-five-there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.none of them really healed who did not regain his religious outlook."
The seven-week series for midlife professionals will be held Thursdays 7:30-9 P.M. at the Pastoral Counseling and Consultation Centers of Greater Washington in Takoma Park, Washington DC. Please contact Kathleen E. Scheg at 202-449-3789 ext. 710 for starting dates and more information.
