Game as a career metaphor: a chaos theory career counselling application

The potential of game as a career metaphor for use in counselling is explored and it is argued that it has been largely overlooked in the literature to date. This metaphor is then explicitly linked with the Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC), by showing how the notion of attractors within the CTC can be illustrated effectively using games metaphors. Games simultaneously illustrate the closed and open systems aspects of human endeavours and therefore can be a useful way of encouraging clients to appreciate the contingent and uncertain nature of their career development. It is argued, therefore, that metaphors provide an example of analogical reasoning that is useful for dealing with the modern counselling realities of complexity, connectedness, systems, changeability and chance.