The marriage of João de Alarcão and Margarida Soares and the creation of a transnational Portuguese-Spanish nobility

The main aim of this chapter is to analyze the social and political effects of dynastic marriages between the Portuguese and Castilian-Aragonese crowns on the configuration of transnational, aristocratic families during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To illustrate these questions we have chosen to follow the Soares de Alarcão family (known in Spain as Suárez de Alarcón) and the paths it took between the royal houses of Portugal and Castile for seven generations. The working hypothesis of the chapter is that the identity of the Iberian nobility during this era was characterized by a shared noble culture rather than by any particular features derived from the family’s land of origin. That assumption allows us to discuss whether the use of a particular language or culture indicates ties or political loyalties based on criteria of nationality, or, at the very least, place of birth. Therefore, this essay discusses the miscegenation of Iberian nobilities derived from dynastic marriages. It articulates the structural characteristics of this group and its political impact with the individual trajectories and historical contexts in which they developed. While these topics can be of interest for the comprehension of Portuguese early modern history, they can also help us to reflect more broadly on processes of identity construction.

Integrating life design counseling and psychotherapy: Possibilities and practices.

The debate on the relation between career counseling and psychotherapy revealed the close relation between psychosocial and career issues. The connection between these two approaches paves the way for the integration of career counseling into psychotherapy. One of the key challenges of integrating career counseling into psychotherapy is to avoid discontinuities and inconsistencies in the psychotherapeutic intervention. The aim of this article is, therefore, to present the Systematic Treatment Selection perspective as a framework for an effective integration of psychotherapy and career counseling. Then, Life Design Counseling is described, highlighting its possibilities to fit the psychotherapeutic approach. Finally, an illustrative case is presented and discussed.

Life Design Counseling process and outcome: A case study with an adolescent

This article aims to explore the relationship between clients´ narrative transformation and the promotion of vocational decidedness and career maturity in a mid-adolescent case of Life Design Counseling (LDC). To assess LDC outcomes the Vocational Certainty Scale and the Career Maturity Inventory – Form C were used before and after the intervention. To intensively analyze the process of LDC change two measures of narrative change were used: the Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS), as a measure of innovation emergence, and the Return to the Problem Coding System (RPCS), as a measure of ambivalence towards change. The results show that the three LDC sessions produced a significant change in vocational certainty but not in career maturity. Findings confirm that the process of change, according to the IMCS, is similar to the one observed in previous studies with adults. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Integrating Life-Design Counseling and Psychotherapy: Possibilities and Practices

The relationship between career counseling and psychotherapy is not a new subject. The debate allows the affirmation of career counseling as a dimension of personal counseling and recognizes the close relationship between psychosocial and career issues (Blustein & Spengler, 1995). The connection between these two approaches paves the way for the integration of career counseling with psychotherapy. Indeed, the inseparability of mental health and career issues frequently leads psychotherapists to help their clients to deal with work satisfaction, underemployment or unemployment through psychotherapy. Moreover, when working with specific populations (e.g., people with intellectual disabilities and people with addiction or mental health problems), psychotherapy calls for occupational integration to consolidate and enhance therapeutic gains (Blustein, 1987; Jordan & Kahnweiler, 1995; Leff & Warner, 2006).

Lineage, Marriage, and Social Mobility: the Teles de Meneses Family in the Iberian Courts (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries)

This article discusses the social mobility strategies of the Teles de Meneses family throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, seeking to understand their influence on the family’s social evolution and improved ranking at the court. Marriage policy and service in the Iberian courts are analyzed over three different generations and from two standpoints: first, the preservation of the family’s preacquired status; second, the diversification of the services performed in the various settings where its influence could be exercised. This will highlight the reasons behind the social evolution of this family and the subsequent granting of titles to some of its members.

Life Design Counseling: A study on client's operations for meaning construction

This study evaluates the adequacy of the micro-theory of client operations to explain meaning construction in Life Design Counseling. Four adolescents were interviewed on their second counseling session. Their recollections were stimulated through the replay of counseling videotapes and the resulting transcribed interviews were qualitatively analyzed. Results confirmed a sequence of client operations evolving from the symbolic representation of experience and reflexive self-examination towards making new realizations and revisioning self. Moreover, clients reported negative and positive session moments evidencing that clients’ attention and activity during the session was not restricted to meaning construction operations. Practical implications for life design counseling are derived from the results and discussed.

Life Design Counseling Group Intervention With Portuguese Adolescents

This article examines the process and outcome of a life design counseling group intervention with students in Grades 9 and 12. First, we applied a quasi-experimental methodology to analyze the intervention’s effectiveness in promoting career certainty, career decision-making, self-efficacy, and career adaptability in a sample of 236 students. Second, focus groups comprising 33 participants were conducted, examining participants’ perceptions of the intervention process and outcome. Our findings showed that the intervention had a significant effect on both career certainty and career self-efficacy, but it had no effect on career adaptability. Our results also showed that My Career Story (MCS) had a stronger effect on Grade 12 students. Focus group participants reported on the usefulness of MCS, as well as on its benefits, which include increased information as well as a sense of direction, self-discovery, connection, and increased self-awareness. Grade 9 participants expressed more difficulties in narrating self-experience than Grade 12 participants did. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.