What is the primary criterion clients and workers use to make choices?

The primary criterion that clients and workers use to make choices is valuing. This concept encompasses the beliefs, principles, and priorities that individuals hold, which significantly influence their decision-making processes. When faced with choices, clients and workers reference their values to guide their decisions, ensuring that the outcomes resonate with their personal ethics and life goals.

Valuing serves as a compass for individuals, allowing them to weigh the options before them against what they find important or meaningful. This could include considerations of family, community, well-being, and personal integrity. By prioritizing their values, clients and workers navigate complex situations with an alignment to their core beliefs, which fosters a sense of agency and ownership in the decision-making process.

In contrast, while personal experience, advice from others, and standard practices all play roles in decision-making, they do so in a more supportive or contextual manner. Personal experience may inform values but doesn't serve as the foundational criterion. Similarly, advice from others can provide additional perspectives, but it often requires the individual to interpret that advice through their personal values. Standard practices provide a framework but may not resonate on a personal level, allowing valuing to emerge as the dominant criterion guiding choices.