Meet The Career Doctor™

( December 9, 2002) Successful people aren't always happy people. Achieving career goals can be an empty victory for some, according to Larchmont Gazette's Career Doctor™, Jacqueline Hornor Plumez. "An architect loved being an architect," she said. "He becomes a member of the firm and moves into management, and suddenly, he has no time to design buildings anymore. He's no longer doing what he loves."

This kind of "be careful what you wish for" scenario is common in her practice, said Dr. Plumez. She helps such people get some perspective on their lives and find ways to get back to doing the kind of work that makes them happy. "You'd think they could figure this out themselves," she said, "But we all get too close to what's happening to us, and these things happen so gradually that we miss the signals until we're really in trouble."

These days, Dr. Plumez sees many young people who are afraid to commit to a career, fearing, mistakenly, that doing so will lock them into a path they may regret. "I try to get them to see that it's quite common to have more than one satisfying career in a lifetime," she said.

Holding a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia, Dr. Plumez is also an author. Her "Divorcing a Corporation" provides tips on changing careers, and her new book, "Mother Power," is a paean to women who have used their maternal strengths to make a difference beyond their own family circles. She also wrote "Successful Adoption: A Guide to Finding A Child And Raising A Family." She has received awards for excellence from the Westchester County Psychological Association, in 1990 and 1993.

In her Larchmont Gazette column, The Career Doctor™, Dr. Plumez uses a question-and-answer format to help readers cope with career issues. You may send her your own question via email, and she might include it in a future column.

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