Medicalizing Counselling: Issues And Tensions (palgrave Studies In The Theory And History Of Psychology)

This book discusses how counselling, a profession known for diverse and innovative practices, has recently been influenced by scientific, marketplace, and administrative developments corresponding with a medicalized focus on psychiatric diagnoses and related evidence-based treatments. Tensions associated with this medicalized focus refer to competing logics and accountabilities regarding how to understand and address concerns brought to counselling. Tom Strong reviews such tensions as they relate to counsellors’ approaches to practice experienced as incompatible with a medicalized approach. The role of media and technology, therapy culture, and counsellor education, are examined with respect to medicalizing tensions that professionals and clients of counselling increasingly face. The book will interest readers who share concerns regarding the potential for a mental health monoculture grounded in the diagnose and treatment logic of medicalized counselling. Preface 7 Acknowledgements 10 Contents 12 List of Figures 14 1 Tensions in Medicalizing the Talking “Cure” 15 Counselling, Tensions, Medicalizing Discourse, and Conversational Work 17 Scientific Discourses and Counselling 22 Mental Health Culture: Where Psychological and Medical Discourses Converge 25 References 32 2 Discourses of Counselling and Human Concern 38 Science and Discourses in Counselling? 40 DiscourseDiscourses? 42 Medicalizing Discourse and Counselling 48 Counselling as Researchable Psychological and Psychiatric (Mental Health) Discourse 49 Pluralistic Discourses of Counselling? 51 References 55 3 Human Concerns as Diagnosable Mental Health Disorders 62 Some Historico-Cultural Considerations 64 Psychological to Psychiatric Discourses for Human Concerns 67 DSM-I to DSM-5 70 Coda 80 References 80 4 Legitimizing an Emergent Mental Health “Monoculture”? 88 Counselling = Psychotherapy? 89 Counselling’s Commingling with Academic Psychology 92 An Emerging Mental Health Era 93 DSM-III and Legitimizing Counselling 97 Legitimizing an Emerging Monoculture? 102 References 104 5 Individualizing and Socializing the Mental Health Monoculture 112 Bio-(Mental) Health Narratives and Technologies of the Self 120 Counselling in a Self-Help World? 126 References 128 6 Medicating and Technologizing Our Diagnosable Lives 136 Mood-Altering Substances and Counselling? 137 Pharmaceuticalization? 141 Brain-Based Developments 144 Mental Health Technologies? 147 Afterthoughts on Affective Technologies 152 References 154 7 Medicalizing Tensions Associated with Administering and Regulating Counselling 165 Situating Our Situational Analysis 167 Medicalized Tensions in the Administration and Regulation of Counselling 170 Medicalized Hot Button Tensions 172 Rationing Counselling? 182 References 183 8 Tensions for Front-Line Counsellors? 188 DialogicMonologic Differends? 190 Discursive Positions on Medicalizing Discourse 200 Reflections 204 References 205 9 Tensions in Training Counsellors? 210 Relationships, Common Factors, and Competencies in Counselling? 212 Guidance and Developmental Tasks? 214 Postmodern and Poststructuralist Counselling? 217 Boulder Model Training: EBP and PBE 219 Medicalizing Tensions in Counsellor Education? 222 Coda 227 References 228 10 Living with Tensions Associated with Medicalizing Counselling 238 Medicalizing Conversational Possibilities? 242 Afterthoughts 246 References 247 Further Reading 252 Index 260 Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Tensions in Medicalizing the Talking “Cure” (Tom Strong)....Pages 1-23 Discourses of Counselling and Human Concern (Tom Strong)....Pages 25-48 Human Concerns as Diagnosable Mental Health Disorders (Tom Strong)....Pages 49-74 Legitimizing an Emergent Mental Health “Monoculture”? (Tom Strong)....Pages 75-98 Individualizing and Socializing the Mental Health Monoculture (Tom Strong)....Pages 99-122 Medicating and Technologizing Our Diagnosable Lives (Tom Strong)....Pages 123-151 Medicalizing Tensions Associated with Administering and Regulating Counselling (Tom Strong)....Pages 153-175 Tensions for Front-Line Counsellors? (Tom Strong)....Pages 177-198 Tensions in Training Counsellors? (Tom Strong)....Pages 199-226 Living with Tensions Associated with Medicalizing Counselling (Tom Strong)....Pages 227-240 Back Matter ....Pages 241-261