A Narrative Inquiry into a Late Middle-Aged Woman's Experiences in an Undergraduate Counseling Course

This study aims to understand how a late middle-aged woman reorganizes and changes her life through an undergraduate counseling course. For this purpose, the study conducted a narrative inquiry, within the framework of temporality, sociality, and placeness, of the opportunity for a late middle-aged woman to specialize in counseling, her learning experiences, and the resulting changes to her life. Following the narrative inquiry method of Clandinin and Connelly (2000), the study selected a late middle-aged woman who was currently studying in a graduate counseling course and collected and analyzed her stories. The analysis results show that the participant's experiences generally fell into three categories: stories before entering the counseling program, stories of undergraduate experiences in the counseling program, and stories of life changes after studying counseling. The participant stated that she realized her long-held aspiration to study and gained experiences that helped her understand her mind, heal her wounds, and advance into society through counseling studies. The meaning of these experiences were discussed from the perspectives of personal, pragmatic, and social justification. The study holds significance in that it sheds light on the processes of a late middle-aged woman reorganizing her independent life by overcoming the framework of ageism through the study of counseling.