Guest:
Dr. Jessica S. Henry is a Full Teaching Professor of Education (RHS) for the College of Education at Penn State.. She possesses an array of skills across both the Mental Health and Rehabilitation Counseling professions. She earned her Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision from Ohio University in 2016 and her Master of Rehabilitation Counseling from Alabama State University in 2012. As a licensed mental health counselor (LPC) and certified rehabilitation counselor (CRC), she has devoted her teaching, research, and practice to understanding the wellness needs of others through the exploration of stress impacts on performance outcomes and quality of life. She has specific expertise in counseling individuals with presenting concerns about disability identity development, adjustment to chronic illness, and stress management.
As an Teaching Professor, Dr. Henry embraces a collectivist and transformational teaching pedagogy to prepare future human services-related professionals by empowering them to think, reflect and learn as a community. Her research agenda centers on "Wellness Pedagogy," a teaching intervention she coined, which seeks to help mitigate harmful impacts across course materials that are considered arduous and triggering to students who may have firsthand exposure by way of their upbringing and life circumstances (e.g., suicide, sexual assault, addiction, etc.).
In addition to her work inside the classroom, Dr. Henry serves as the Professor-in-Charge of Rehabilitation and Human Services.
Episode Transcript:
LINDSEY WHISSEL FENTON: From the very first time we're asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? To grappling in mid-career with is this still what I want to be? Our work shapes so much of who we are, which is why our feelings around our career are so important to our wellness. I'm Lindsey Whissel Fenton with 12 Degrees on WPSU. How do we build a career that aligns with our passion, purpose, and well-being? To find out, I'm talking with Dr. Jessica Henry, a teaching professor for the College of Education at Penn State. Dr. Jess, I would like to start with the word “career,” because I think it can be easy to think of career as being synonymous with job. Are they the same thing?
JESSICA HENRY: No, actually, they're not. I think you can have a career in that career can lead to your job or be supportive of your job, but your career is a little bit more about your personal identity. I like to use the six P’s: your passion, your purpose, your perspective, your power, your privilege, and your positionality. To me, that is what defines our career. Passion is what we truly, really care about, the thing that wakes us up in the morning. Our purpose could be to help people, to change lives, to grow things, to build things. Our perspective is how we think; how we can add to whatever field we’re doing. Our power is how we actually show up in those spaces and give to other people. The things that we can influence are our power. Our privilege, obviously, is the thing that positions us to be able to do that work, and then our positionality is similar, but it’s the things about us that help pour into the spaces that we want to pour into. So, I do believe that when we are truly well in our career, when we are truly happy, when we truly feel like we are doing the thing that we were called to do, those six P’s will show up in that space.
LINDSEY WHISSEL FENTON: I like that framework and it has me thinking about how we often think of choosing a career as a one-time decision, and I feel like that’s shifting a little. But, you know, it starts when we’re young: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s like there’s one specific path, and you better find the right one. I feel like that can generate a lot of anxiety, because it’s like, “Oh, wow, if I’m going to be in this for the next four or five decades, I better get it right.” So how can we shift that thinking in ways that reduce anxiety and improve our ability to nurture this career wellness?
JESSICA HENRY: I tell my students this all the time. They really want to get it in four years. They believe that if you come to college, you start a major and you finish, and you graduate in four years, and you know what you are going to do for the remainder of your life. And I say, that is absolutely not true. That is far from the truth. So, the anxiety about getting it right the first time…I didn’t land as a teacher the first time. I joke with my students that I have a dream career, and it’s to be a housewife of a famous football player. I didn’t, and I haven’t achieved that yet. But I think all of it is with purpose. Everything that I do is for a reason, and it actually adds to what my value is and that me getting to that place that I would call success; I’ve made it, I’ve made it to that place. So, one of the things I would tell students to help them be more intentional about avoiding anxiety when it comes to picking careers is to let them know that everything happens for a reason. Everything is building you up to help you select the place that you’re supposed to be in life.
LINDSEY WHISSEL FENTON: That was Dr. Jessica Henry, a teaching professor for the College of Education at Penn State. This interview is part of 12 Degrees, a program and podcast produced by WPSU in collaboration with the Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing. Learn more at wellness.psu.edu. I'm Lindsey Whissel Fenton, WPSU.
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This is a clip from a longer conversation. To listen to the full episode, visit:
