Message from President

Since its establishment in 2000, Japan Career Development Association (JCDA) has been continuing making efforts for training career counselors.  The number of the individual members exceeds 20,000, and that of the organizational members is 20 (as of Dec. 2021).

With the experience we walked though over the past two decades, I would like to share with you what we think the possibilities are for career counseling.

The experiences of conducting career counseling as a counselor and/or having counseling session as a client often help to reach “your own sense of values”, in other words, “what drives you to what you do”, which you have nurtured and cherished within yourself for long.   Moreover these experiences often leads to the feeling of treasuring yourself.  And the feeling of treasuring yourself often leads to the feeling of respecting others.  It seems that these steps are often seen commonly everywhere, free from country and culture in which you are - many career counselors say that they share similar experience.  They have walked through the process where the person sees not only his or her own values but also respect the other’s values, and that changes in the way of thinking certainly leads to the changes in the way of dialogue.

Career counselors’ experiences in such change process is profound.  By sharing such way of dialogue with people around them, career counselors are able to contribute to the society; they make the base where people create relations among them and support each other.

For a long time, in many countries/areas people have been developing the industry and economy, and we have seen massive competition there.  Tremendous efforts were made to make economic growth and innovation in industries.   We recognize that we, people on the earth, are facing problems we need to deal with, to think together, and act together.  We believe the possibility of our experience in career counseling – the experience to make changes with the way of dialogue – we are able to contribute to make society where people talk not only from their own value but also respect the value of others.  

We continue to work for the value by cultivating career counseling, and also by networking to broaden the field.  If you are interested in such activities, we welcome you to walk with us.

Yoshio Ohara 

President