The Purpose of Counselling and Psychotherapy

ISBN-13: 9781403935960 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 258 str.

Michael Bennett

Opis

What is the purpose of counselling and psychotherapy? Michael Bennett argues that the theory and practice of these fields have failed to live up to their therapeutic and social/political promise. An increased concern with professionalization and other issues has left them increasingly divorced from any sense of purpose-moral, ethical, social and political. Bennett develops a plausible and rigorous philosophical foundation for defining the purpose of counselling and psychotherapy and then embarks on a critical analysis of their therapeutic and political practice. This book is unique in opening up the field of counselling to rational debate, rather than assuming certain values without making transparent where these values come and showing why they are valid. Bennett situates counselling in a context of postmodern, poststructuralist and critical theory, thereby opening up this very closed world to new ideas and theories.

Spis treści

Introduction.- Communicative Rationality.- Morality, Ethics and Autonomy.- The Development of Moral Character.- Communicative Action and Counselling.- Issues In Psychotherapy and Counselling.- Abstract Systems and the Colonization of Self.- Critique, Resistance and Transformation.

O autorze

MICHAEL BENNETT is the General Manager of Relate Avon.

Blurb

Why do counsellors and psychotherapists practice? What is the purpose? What real benefit does the client gain and what benefit accrues to society as a whole? Do liberal and postmodern values leave counselling and psycho-therapy vulnerable to being devalued by consumerism, individualism and relativism? This unique text subjects counselling and psychotherapy to a proper and thorough moral and ethical analysis.
Using radical new theories, the author opens up the field of counselling to rational debate, giving it a thorough analysis that is political, sociological and philosophical in outlook. Drawing on the communicative ethics of Habermas, he provides a new basis for understanding the purpose of counselling and psychotherapy. Using an argument that is both challenging and stimulating, the liberal and postmodern approaches are decisively investigated and
rejected. Of interest to specialists and non-specialists alike, this work offers
a new vision for counselling, which is both appealing and soundly argued.