‘Limits to therapy and counselling’: Deconstructing a professional ideology

Abstract

The rapidity with which therapy, as discourse and as clinicalprofessional practice, has become established in contempora y culture is subjected to a searching deconstructive critique. Specifically, it is argued that therapy ' s pretensions to being a legitimate professional, clinical practice are not only highly questionable, but actually constitute a seEf-serving and ethically questionable ideology. The 'scientific' status of therapy as a modernist enterprise is argued to be fundamentally undermined by new-paradigm epistemologies. It is further argued that, in its professionalised, commodified form, therapy can become routinely and intrinsically abusive to the extent that it se&jiu&llingly constructs a framework which then serves to guarantee its own legitimacy within a discursive 'regime of truth'. Parker's important work on discourse and power is drawn upon to illustrate these radical arguments, and to make the case for an approach to therapy which is ongoingly and processually deconstructive of its 'professional' ideologies and clinical practices, if the kinds of dangers outlined are to be avoided. Such deconstmction wouM also include an ongoing and explicit interrogation of 'therapy' as an historically specific, evolving and, it is submitted, transit0 y cultural practice. Deep and honest ethical reflection is needed on the nature of therapy, and on the possibility of developing more healthily appropriate socio-cultural forms for helping people with their 'dificulties of living'.

What is the next big revolution in the field of psychotherapy?

“…There are at least two problems in trying to foresee revolutionary possibilities from inside a field (Gadamer, 1975;Guillen, 1983;House, 1999;Riikonen & Smith, 1987). One is that vision can be severely limited by all sorts of implicit, ingrained, entrenched presumptions, assumptions, postulates, presumed truths of which one is essentially unaware (Chalmers, 1982;Feigl, 1953;Mahrer, 1996Mahrer, , 2000Schon, 1982;Slife & Williams, 1995;Spence, 1994).…”

“…From outside the field, in the special position, one can see what the field of psychotherapy takes for granted and quietly holds as basic and true, almost without knowing that it does so. These are the underlying presumptions, the fundamental truths, the foundational beliefs that are entrenched, hidden, quietly accepted, and almost immune from recognition from inside the field (Gergen, 1982; House, 1999; Mahrer, 2000; Riikonen & Smith, 1987).…”

The Freudo-Marxist Tradition and the Critique of Psychotherapeutic Ideology

“…Psychotherapy is thus ideology, and not just the expression or effect of ideology (Strunk, ). Hence, before seeking to infer the ideological content underlying the work of psychotherapists, we must first describe the ideological form that is immanent in their work, and so question psychotherapy as ideology, as ideological practice (House, ; Matot, ).…”

Commentary: some thoughts on difference, the ‘profession’, and transcending the ideologies of late modernity

“…In sum, then: I passionately believe that therapeutic practice will continue to evolve and progress only if the field is left unfettered by rigid professionalizing imperatives, with the freedom to encourage leadingedge innovation and diversity (Bates and House, 2003), free of the deadening encumbrances of institutionally professionalized 'Regimes of Truth' (House, 1999(House, , 2003a) -and if we can stay as open as we are able to challenging the ideologies of modernity at every opportunity, and, concomitantly, to opening ourselves to the possibility of discovering modernity-transcending realities that we have as yet scarcely dreamt of. Of course, Oakley raises legitimate concerns when he refers to the enormous pressures upon therapy to fall in line with prevailing cultural madnesses and buy into their pernicious accoutrements, lest time pass us by and we end up being, as he writes, 'out of tune and out of time'.…”