Written by: Seth Hayden, Ph.D., LCMHC & Kayla Reed-Fitzke, Ph.D., LMFT
Military spouses face a variety of complex and persistent employment challenges. Frequent relocations, licensure barriers, gaps in employment history, childcare demands, and the unpredictability of military life often disrupt career trajectories and undermine long-term professional growth (Burke & Miller, 2017; Drummet et al., 2003; Lara-Cinisomo et al., 2012; Office of People Analytics, 2025). While a growing number of federal, nonprofit, and civilian organizations now offer career coaching, employment assistance, and counseling services to support military spouses (e.g., Spouse Education and Career Opportunities [SECO]), navigating these options and translating them into meaningful, sustainable careers remains difficult. At the same time, career coaches and counselors who work with military spouses may be called to address not only job placement concerns, but also career indecision, identity shifts, emotional strain, and repeated transitions. These realities highlight the need for practitioners to draw from newer, evidence-based career theories that account for both the cognitive and emotional complexity of career development. One such approach is cognitive information processing (CIP) theory, which offers a structured yet flexible framework for supporting military spouses as they build agency, clarify goals, and make informed career decisions amid ongoing change.
CIP (Sampson et al., 2023) aims to help individuals through the career decision-making process and may have useful applications on issues such as initial career choice, career indecision, career transition, dysfunctional career thoughts, and mental health related to career concerns. CIP identifies four elements required for making an informed career decision, including the (a) knowledge domain that consists of self and options knowledge, (b) the decision-making domain that ideally is comprised of an effective career decision-making and problem-solving approach (i.e., in CIP theory, known as the CASVE Cycle), and the executive processing domain, which consists of (c) how an individual manages the process of addressing their career concern, and (d) includes awareness of and ability to control self-talk that might impede the process. The CASVE Cycle outlines a CIP-based sequence of recommended career decision-making steps. With respect to the four components, research (Osborn et al., 2020) has shown that the four elements are separate yet related. For example, as one learns about options and evaluates those options, self-talk is impacted, self-knowledge is enhanced, and they progress in the career decision-making process. Thus, as a practitioner works with a client in one area, change is simultaneously happening in the other areas.
Readiness to engage in the career decision-making and problem-solving process is comprised of two interactive elements: capability and complexity. Capability is an individual’s ability to make a decision at a given time, including an awareness of each of the components, and is influenced by mental health, dysfunctional career thoughts, self-esteem, intelligence, emotional state, level of honesty in reflecting on one’s career-related traits, and a willingness to take personal responsibility for career decision-making. Complexity refers to the external environment that presses in a supportive or non-supportive way on a person as they contemplate their career concerns. Complexity factors may include significant others, family, friends, social groups, societal issues such as racism and discrimination, economic variables such as financial stability or poverty, and organizational factors such as promotion policies.
CIP can be used to enhance agency in career development due to its learning of career decision making and problem-solving skills (Hayden et al., 2021). In addition, it accounts for the complexity of career development, which encompasses emotions and thoughts (Hayden et al., 2025; Hayden & Osborn, 2020). The complexity of career development for military spouses requires a sophisticated approach to career support.
To explore how these concepts translate into practice, we invite you to register and join our upcoming webinar, Evidence-Based Interventions for Supporting Military Spouse Career Development, designed for career counselors, workforce professionals, and other providers supporting military spouse career readiness. Participants will gain deeper insight into the career and work experiences of military spouses, build a practical understanding of CIP career theory, and examine evidence-based career interventions specifically tailored to this population. The webinar will also highlight actionable tools and resources you can immediately apply in your work to strengthen career decision-making, foster agency, and better support military spouses navigating complex and ongoing transitions.
References
Burke, J. & Miller, A.R. (2017). The effects of job relocation on spousal careers: Evidence from military change of station moves. Economic Inquiry, 56, 1261-1277. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12529
Drummet, A. R., Coleman, M., & Cable, S. (2003). Military families under stress: Implications for family life education. Family Relations, 52(3), 279–287. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00279.x
Hayden, S. C. W., Osborn, D.S., Peace, C. & Lange, R. (2021). Enhancing agency in career development via cognitive information processing theory, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 49(2), 304-315, https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2020.1867703
Hayden, S. C. W., D. S. Osborn, J. Bucher, K. Costello, & M. Barkett. (2025). The relationship between states of anxiety, negative career thoughts, and information-processing skills. The Career Development Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.70013
Hayden, S. C. W., and D. S. Osborn. (2020). “Impact of worry on Career thoughts, Career decision state, and cognitive information processing skills. Journal of Employment Counseling 57: 163–177. https://doi.org/10.1002/joec.12152
Lara-Cinisomo S., Chandra A., Burns R. M., Jaycox L. H., Tanielian T., Ruder T., Han B. (2012). A mixed-method approach to understanding the experiences of non-deployed military caregivers. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 16, 374–384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-011-0772-2
Office of People Analytics. (2025). 2024 Active-Duty Spouse Survey [PDF]. https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Presentations/2024-active-duty-spouse-survey-full-briefing.pdf
Osborn, D. S., R. D. Sides, and C. A. Brown. (2020). Comparing career development outcomes Among Undergraduate Students in cognitive information processing theory–based versus human relations courses. The Career Development Quarterly 68: 32–47. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12211
Sampson, J. P., Jr., J. G. Lenz, E. Bullock-Yowell, D. S. Osborn, and S. C. W. Hayden, (Eds.) (2023). Cognitive information processing: Career theory, research, and practice. Florida State Open Publishing. https://doi.org/10.33009/fsop_sampson1123
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