Professional orientation and the choice process: a reflection using the socio historic perspective

Abstract

Firstly the aim of this article is to express some thoughts, that socio historic psychology is developing about theoretician and methodological presuppositions that guide the professional orientation practice. After that we will see how the choice process is understood by this approach. We consider the first issue relevant because we believe that discussions about professional orientation can’t be summarized by a set of strategies and activities. We see the essential focus being on “how to do” discussions, or better, in the practical discussions, a reflection about the presuppositions that guide the practice, pinpointing, in this way the ethics relating to that. During this discussion we will present the subject as unique and singular, but at the same time social and historical, as the one that transforms the social into psychological, also as the one that lives the contradiction of the symbolic and the emotional and as the one that produces subjective senses and for this reason, for sure can choose. After that we will present, how the socio historic psychology understands the choice process. By doing that we don’t intend to deny the active and creative way of the subject. This will be done without falling into the trap that this discussion can raise, when it is lead by conceptions, crossed by neo-liberalism, which separates the subject from the social and historical process that constitutes it.