Flat out psychoanalytic personality theory applied to career counseling is not really popular, owing to both the marginalization of psychoanalysis in general therapy and to practical problems of time and measurement and economic considerations. More often used in career counseling is the method devised by psychologist Anne Roe, which combines several views of personality. Roe directed considerable attention to the developmental period of early childhood in career counseling. Highlighting Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Roe's approach supposes that career choices match the level of needs those choices attempt to satisfy.

As you'll remember, Maslow proposed that primary needs must be met before the higher order ones can be effectively sought. Maslow's hierarchy is as follows, starting with the basic needs and working up to the higher order ones (note that this originally started out as 5 levels but was refined and modified to include 8 levels):

1. Physiological needs
2. Safety needs
3. A sense of belonging and love
4. Esteem needs 5. Cognitive needs (knowledge, understanding)
6. Aesthetic needs (appreciation/search for beauty) 7. Self-actualization (self-fulfillment, realizing one's potential, personal growth) 8. Transcendence

With Maslow in mind, Roe's system stresses the influence of child-rearing on later career paths and presents three basic kinds of causes and effects:

1. Emotional concentration on the child - more often than not, children with overprotective and over demanding parents have their lowest order physiological and safety needs met as a matter of course, but at the expense of needs for belonging, love, and self-esteem. These, then, would be conditions sought in adult occupations.

2. Avoidance of the child - when children's physiological and emotional needs are neglected, they're likely to grow up seeking occupations of material acquisition and solitary pursuit.

3. Acceptance of the child - children accepted as an important part of a family that shares and discusses decisions and responsibilities find many or most of their needs fulfilled, and will probably seek careers that will satisfy the highest order needs.

Roe's approach also supposes that all of the above are influenced by genetic endowment (smarts and physical prowess, for example). Attitudes, interests, and economic and social conditions can be trumped by high cards won in the cosmic draw, but the holder has to know when to hold them and when best to cash in his chips.

Roe was the first psychologist to use a two-dimensional classification system for occupations. Her "fields and levels" diagram (matrix or, more often, concentric circles) shows how interests and occupational fields combine with varying levels of responsibility, skill, and ability.

The eight fields are:

1. Service
2. Business Contact
3. Organizations
4. Technology
5. Outdoor
6. Science
7. General Culture
8. Arts and Entertainment

The corresponding levels are:

1. Professional, Managerial, and Higher
2. Semi-professional and Small Business
3. Skilled
4. Semiskilled
5. Unskilled