'Limits to therapy and counselling': deconstructing a professional ideology

House, Richard

doi:10.1080/03069889900760331

Cited by 5 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The practices of career development need to be reviewed with the aim of empowering the client through their lived reality of the world and their context; rather than an imposed reality constructed by the self-serving ideals of positivist psychological science and its practitioners with their attended self-serving biases (House, 1999). This assertion is subsumed by the call for a revision of the scientist-practitioner model toward a criticalpractitioner model of practice (Larner, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As with institutionalised psychotherapy (House, 1999;Smail, 1999), the theories, discursive practices, and counselling actions of career development practitioners need to be brought into question. Furthermore, the counsellor's knowledge of him or herself in the relationship is crucial.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Apart from a few notable and stimulating works (e.g., Irving & Malik, 2005;O'Doherty & Roberts, 2000;Richardson, 2000;Woodd, 2000), researchers and practitioners of vocational psychology and career development have produced scant publications that reflexively turn on the torch of critical self-inspection. In the vein of critical psychology, which sets out to challenge traditional assumptions and practices of psychology (e.g., Austin & Prilleltensky, 2001;Baydala, 2001;House, 1999;Larner, 2001), this paper presents a polemic that raises doubts regarding the intentions of traditional career development practice with respect to their allegiance to the client and calls for an alternative perspective for practice in which tacit assumptions underpinning power are made explicit. It asserts that vocational psychology and career counselling are powerful social institutions that have the capacity to influence the lives of individuals, and are also concomitantly influenced by broader global forces that impact upon them.…”

Section: A Critical Reflection On Career Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This critical question juxtaposes the literature on the clients' influential ascription of expertise to counsellors (e.g. Paradise, Conway, & Zweig, 1986) and the power dynamics of counselling and educational guidance (House, 1999;Usher & Edwards, 2005). Dawis and Lofquist (1984) recommend that both actuarial-prediction (based upon psychometric data) and the clinical-prediction (based upon the interview process) proffered by the psychologist serve the client equally well; however, lend more credence to the psychometrics in recommending that psychologists should advise their clients to preferentially heed the actuarial-prediction, presumably because of its scientific visage.…”

Section: The Lens Of Foucaultmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although career 'self-management' is a laudable client-centred perspective, the discipline has paid scant attention to it (King, 2004). This critical argument is informed by the polemics of House (1999) and Smail (1999) who cogently demonstrate the presence of a self-serving ideology within the field of psychotherapy and counselling. House was not antitherapy; his argument was with the institutionalization of psychotherapy and its creation of a 7 power discourse for the purpose of sustaining itself, and the failure of the professions to critically self-reflect.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Critical Reflection on Career Development

McIlveen

Patton

2006

Int J Educ Vocat Guidance

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The science and professional practices of vocational psychology and career development are brought into question via a critical polemic informed by the work of Foucault, with a particular focus on the application of theory and techniques of objective assessment and psychometrics. It is asserted that the scientific and professional discourse and constructs of traditional approaches to career development have been reified. The context of this discourse is discussed with respect to the risk that career development scientists and practitioners have become unwitting or complicit instruments of a broader economic and political discourse.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Critical Reflection On Career Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Lens Of Foucaultmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Critical Reflection on Career Development

McIlveen

Patton

2006

Int J Educ Vocat Guidance

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The tyranny of the positive attitude in America: Observation and speculation

2002

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According to both popular and professional indicators, the push for the positive attitude in America is on the rise. After considering the popular culture zeitgeist, I compare and contrast two recent professional psychology movements-those of positive psychology and postmodern therapy-both of which rest on a foundation of optimism and positive thinking despite their opposing views about a proper philosophy of science. I then present cross-cultural empirical research that calls into question the typical (North American) assumption that a positive attitude is necessary for (a sense of) well-being. I also consider findings in health psychology, clinical/counseling psychology, and organizational behavioral science, findings which call into question the assumption that accentuating the positive (and eliminating the negative) is necessarily beneficial in terms of physical and mental health. The clinical/therapeutic implications of this analysis are addressed, as I put forth my conjecture about the existence of what I call the "tyranny of the positive attitude" in the form of a question: If there indeed now exists unprecedented pressure to accentuate the positive, could it then be that the pressure itself to be happy and optimistic contributes to at least some forms of unhappiness?

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The Freudo-Marxist Tradition and the Critique of Psychotherapeutic Ideology

Pavón‐Cuéllar

2014

Psychotherapy and Politics International

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The ideology of psychotherapy is questioned through critical concepts taken from the Freudo-Marxist tradition. The paper first analyses in detail six determinant ideological processes detected in psychotherapy that three pioneers of Freudo-Marxism criticised in the 1920s: dualistic scission and metaphysical immobilisation (Luria); idealist generalisation and mechanistic determination (Bernfeld); and repressive adaptation and historical decontextualisation (Reich). Following this, it briefly reviews seven paired analogous processes that were denounced by continuators of the Freudo-Marxist tradition: valorative moralisation and the psychologisation of the social (Fenichel); instinctualrational deprivation and the mechanisation of the subject (Adorno); alienating performance and surplus repression (Marcuse); manipulation and dehumanising alienation (Fromm); abstraction and mythologising (Bleger); authoritarianism and suggestion (Caruso); and depoliticisation and rationalisation (Langer). The argument will show how Freudo-Marxist questionings of these operations -many now forgotten -are still current and can be inspiring and enriching for a modern critique of psychotherapy.

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'Limits to therapy and counselling': deconstructing a professional ideology

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

A Critical Reflection on Career Development

A Critical Reflection on Career Development

The tyranny of the positive attitude in America: Observation and speculation

The Freudo-Marxist Tradition and the Critique of Psychotherapeutic Ideology

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