Episode 87 | What People Don’t Think about When It Comes to Their Career

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About Lynn Imai:

Lynn Imai, Ph.D., is a Registered Psychotherapist and Career Counsellor in Toronto. Many of Lynn’s clients, when they first come to her, are at a critical point in their lives. They are questioning their careers and asking themselves why they do what they do. They are often feeling unfulfilled, purposeless, and stuck between the pain of staying where they are in their careers, and the pain of dealing with the confusion, overwhelm, stress, and anxiety of figuring out what comes next.

Lynn’s approach to career counselling draws on psychotherapy, which helps her clients manage difficult emotions and develop deep self-awareness, while at the same time, focusing on making strategic, informed decisions with practical action planning. In addition to career counselling, Lynn provides psychotherapy on personal issues such as stress, anxiety, depression, low confidence & self-esteem, relationships, and interpersonal issues. Lynn draws from a variety of evidence-based psychotherapy modalities including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT).

Outside her clinical work, Lynn is a recognized expert on organizational behaviour, workplace effectiveness, culture & diversity, and global leadership. As a former professor at Ivey Business School (Western University), Lynn’s research and teaching have focused on how individuals can develop as global leaders in workplace contexts such as cross-cultural negotiations, global virtual teams, and strategy consulting in emerging markets. Lynn’s research has appeared in top-tier academic journals, and both her research and teaching have garnered national press coverage.

Personally, Lynn is a “third culture kid” who grew up in Japan, the U.S., Canada, and Belgium, and brings a multicultural perspective to therapy. She obtained her Hon. BSc. in Psychology from the University of Toronto—Trinity College, and her M.Psy. in Clinical and Counselling Psychology from Adler Graduate Professional School. Lynn also has graduate degrees in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Maryland—College Park.

Episode Notes:

Dr. Laura welcomes Dr. Lynn Imai, a Registered Psychotherapist, Clinical Director at Canada Career Counselling, and Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Ivey Business School, to the show to talk in-depth about careers and career changes. Lynn works at the national psychology practice Dr. Laura founded, and the conversation with Lynn digs into practical and psychological insights, delving into how to change, choose, and assess careers.

Dr. Lynn Imai understands the uncertainty that can accompany a major career change as she did one herself, pivoting from being a full-time professor teaching global leadership at a business school to being a registered psychotherapist with a career counselling focus. The expectations, pressures, and anxieties of such a move inform much of how she relates to clients. She and Dr. Laura discuss what not to do when choosing a career and how to manage the worry that comes with navigating a drastic change in one’s career. This episode serves as a starting point for anyone who wants to start on a new career path or is just beginning to decide what their career journey will look like. 

“I do think that the traditional career path [of] climbing the ladder is breaking apart a little bit in society and you see a lot of people taking career breaks or changing their careers, doing nontraditional work, you know, shared work gigs, coming back in from retirement. But what’s interesting is, psychologically, people still tie their self-worth to the traditional notions of success, like money, prestige and title and those things. And so a lot of my work is helping them undo what they’ve learned.” Dr. Lynn Imai

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