Deriving inspiration out of his own childhood experiences, Prof. Kobus Maree committed his life’s work to helping people of all kinds and classes to find their life purposes. As a result, he has become a world-renowned researcher and educational psychologist, cited by acclaimed researchers in the field and generally acknowledged as one of the leading global experts in the area of career counselling.

Since taking up a post at the University of Pretoria, Maree set out to develop a career counselling strategy that would benefit all people, irrespective of their colour, creed, socio-economic situation or geographic location. Maree’s work contributed to the rather drastic shift from applying the traditional, ‘positivist’ style of career counselling – from conducting tests and, based on the results, telling the person what he or she should pursue – in virtual isolation to applying an integrated, qualitative and quantitative style of administering career counselling. The strategy is premised on the belief that it is essential to elicit people’s career-life stories and identify their major life themes to enable them to draw on their career-life stories and the associated career-life themes during career counselling.

Drawing on the pioneering work of Mark Savickas, “my personal role model and career counselling’s most eminent scholar; a man who single-handed reshaped the face of career psychology in our time; the single biggest influence in my career and life”, Maree explains that people’s earliest recollections are used to elicit their central life themes. Maree explains that life themes co-determine what they need to do to “actively master what they have passively suffered (especially in their early years)” (Savickas). These themes (which identify the ‘original’ pain in people’s lives) develop from early childhood experiences and it is the job of career counsellors to help clients turn their pain or hurt into hope and social contributions. Life themes are, for example, a desire to help people who are vulnerable, a desire to look after sick people, a desire to defend people who are being bullied or even a desire to be very wealthy (this particular desire often stems from feelings of insecurity). Unfailingly, people are astonished when they learn more about themselves, discover who they are, based on their account of their early recollections. Once you gain the trust of the person, you can proceed to identify these themes that recur in their lives. For Maree, it has been a dedication of 30 years to design an integrated strategy that merged both qualitative and quantitative instruments to help people elicit their own interests and their central life themes in a relatively short space of time. His instruments have been designed to not only identify people’s interests but also identify their central life themes. What sets Maree’s work apart from the work of previous researchers, is that he is one of small band of researchers who have successfully designed an integrated approach to career counselling by merging the ‘results’ from quantitative instruments with the subjective data elicited by using qualitative assessment strategies. To elicit people’s career life stories If the quantitative ‘results’ confirm and are confirmed by  the life themes yielded by qualitative ‘assessment’, Maree is satisfied that optimal outcomes have been achieved. He maintains that if a person’s sense of self and career identity are stable, chances of the person constructing a rewarding career, designing a successful life and making social contributions are optimised. Based on this, Maree’s instruments are able to not only facilitate the process of finding appropriate career for people but, more importantly today, to help them become employable.

Maree’s novel ‘quantitative’ career counselling instrument (a psychological test), the Maree Career Matrix or the MCM is listed with the South African Professional Board for Psychology as a psychological test that can be used by Registered Counsellors, Psychometrists and Psychologists provided that the constructs used are within their scope of practice. Maree’s Career Interest Profile or CIP (a qualitative or narrative instrument and associated strategy) is used in conjunction with the MCM. The CIP is not a ‘test’ – instead, its aim is focus on people’s ‘subjective’ aspects and it is therefore used to enable people to narrate and authorise their career-life stories. The CIP has also been translated into other languages and is used extensively abroad.

A major driving force behind Maree’s work, and arguably his own, most central life theme, is to facilitate social justice. Poverty and injustice are issues that lie deep within his heart. Being able to use his own expertise to empower people and help them realise their dreams has been a life-long commitment. Maree notes that about 90% of all his research has been conducted in townships and rural schools, describing these visits as the “most revealing and rewarding experiences in my life.” Maree continues to refine his instruments by testing them in regions challenged by major disadvantages (in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa). “If the approach works where people are struggling with a shortage of resources, language barriers and other constraints, then I know the instruments will work everywhere else,” says Maree.

Contrasting traditional career counselling tests, what makes the style of Maree’s integrated approach not only unique, but also reliable, valid and trustworthy, is that it allows the individual person to narrate their stories, listen to themselves and draw on their stories to make his/her own deductions and conclusions about him/herself. People are no longer assessed to determine how much they “are similar to others”. Quite the opposite. Assessment is aimed at discovering and revealing the individuality and uniqueness of clients. Maree never tells the person who they are, but rather through the questions he asks, enables individuals to reflect on their own answers (reflections). Reflexivity is the term Maree uses to describe the process whereby individuals reflect on and utilise their own reflections to plan a better future. In doing so, they are allowed to listen to themselves and so find out what it is that will make them happy and successful. “I believe that unless we make social contributions, we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing with our lives. Everything I do revolves around the principle ‘if it doesn’t mean something to someone else, then it’s not worthwhile,’” says Maree.

Maree has helped countless people in realising what it is they would like to do with their lives. His instruments are suitable for all people at points of transition, thus periods like grade 9 (when needing to make subject choices), grade 11 and 12 (when needing to make career studying choices), first years (for people not enjoying their tertiary study choices), other students who feel uncertain about whether they are pursuing an appropriate field of study, and working (or unemployed) people (who are in a profession, but not feeling satisfied or content) of virtually all ages. Moreover, Maree says that he has learned a great deal from asking workers in humble positions (such as waiters, office cleaners, newspaper vendors, and domestic workers) about aspects of their work they enjoy (most and least) and what they really want to do in life. Their answers routinely reveal some of their reasons for not doing (being able or allowed to do) what they really want to do (such as become social workers, teachers, medical doctors or engineers).

This philosophy has resulted in Maree being selected to serve on the UNESCO Chair that strives to facilitate so-called Decent Work for all people across the globe. Decent work revolves around the notion that everybody should have certain non-negotiable rights at work, social protection and access to the type of work that promotes and accommodates these. Maree works tirelessly to facilitate decent work in South Africa, but notes the major obstacle of corruption that hinders the reality of decent work for all in people in this country.

Maree is a B rated scientist – the only person in the Faculty of Education to have this NRF rating. He also runs his own private practice, using his instruments (in conjunction with those of others), always applying in practice what he developed in theory. Maree is a Professor in the Faculty of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology.