Vocational psychology and career counseling: Inventing the future

Vocational psychology has amassed a mature and impressive scientific litera ture. It has also made a number of professional and political strides in re cent years. However, several weaknesses, or gaps, are also apparent (e.g.. certain issues or populations have been understudied, linkages to other dom ains of inquiry have often been missed, and less attention has been paid to contextual and cultural variables than is desirable). A plethora of threat s and opportunities await vocational psychology in the next decade. Some of the threats (e.g., the availability of Internet-based career services) als o pose great opportunities, depending on how we plan for, and respond to, t hem. Within this context, I suggest a revised mission statement for vocatio nal psychology, focusing on many of the field's traditional strengths, unfu lfilled promises, and new challenges. In addition, a set of goals is offere d to encourage advances in several old and new areas of vocational inquiry and practice. (C) 2001 Academic Press.