European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 2020
This engaging symposium opens up the question of therapeutic work with young adults in a consiste... more This engaging symposium opens up the question of therapeutic work with young adults in a consistently engrossing way that is refreshingly unpredictable and richly diverse. Particularly important is the appropriately extensive space given to the cultural context of therapy in late modernity; the impact and implications of the Zeitgeist for working therapeutically with young adults; the contested place of training with this client group; and the demonstration of thoughtful and sensitive clinical work with a client group whose ‘emerging-adulthood-in-process’ necessitates that therapists do all they can not to get in the way of the complex developmental struggles of the troubled young adults who find their way into therapy.
The revised Early Years Foundation Stage is a slimmed down document that takes on board many of t... more The revised Early Years Foundation Stage is a slimmed down document that takes on board many of the recommendations from the Tickell Review, but is it stuck in an outmoded education paradigm?
1. In the United Kingdom at the start of the twenty-first century, critical reflection on the pla... more 1. In the United Kingdom at the start of the twenty-first century, critical reflection on the place of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) in current therapeutic practice, and in the prevalent cultural discourse around well-being and'happiness'(Layard, 2005), has ...
... that both strongly embraces aspects of psychodynamic, humanistic, existential-phenomenologica... more ... that both strongly embraces aspects of psychodynamic, humanistic, existential-phenomenological, postmodern and ... is a viable move in the face of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy's (CBT) National ... as a perverse defence fostering an as if relationship between government and ...
In this paper I revisit the theme of therapy training, examined in this journal a decade ago in H... more In this paper I revisit the theme of therapy training, examined in this journal a decade ago in House (1996. I first outline what I mean by the term “trans-modern” in the context of debates about “postmodern” and deconstructive approaches to therapy. I then explore the configuration that therapy training might plausibly take when technological rationality's positivistic certainties are dramatically undermined, and the path to becoming a therapy practitioner coheres more closely with the trans-modern, “New Paradigm” Zeitgeist–a world-view which both acknowledges the (albeit unbalanced) contributions of modernity, yet takes us well beyond modernity's constraining limitations. To illustrate my argument I focus on and problematize the role of theory in therapy training. I conclude with some speculations about plausible paths that a trans-modern approach to therapy training might profitably take in future.
European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 2009
The title of this book might intimidate – is there something beyond the bracing rigours and chall... more The title of this book might intimidate – is there something beyond the bracing rigours and challenging opacities of a Lyotard, Foucault, Baudrillard, or Derrida, something more penetrating and subversive than the postmodern critique of knowledge, dogmatism and totalising certainties? The theory-shy psychotherapist-reader can breathe a small sigh of relief; the suggestive ‘beyond’ does not signpost a journey to impossible new frontiers of postmodern scepticism – only perhaps towards a wary recognition of theory’s limitations. On the other hand, the contributors do not take the line that there was a ‘postmodern moment’ beyond which we can now happily say we have passed; the book does not deny postmodern continental philosophy’s immense and enduring contributions to the human sciences over the last fifty years. Its overall aim, summed up in Donna Orange’s fine editorial postscript, is to re-assert that there are ‘‘forms of human life we must take seriously’’, things with which the most radical, relativising postmodernism has had trouble engaging: ‘‘complexity, agency, self-experience, mutual understanding, suffering and trauma’’ (p. 231). Beyond Postmodernism seeks to show us how these givens of human need and experience can be understood and worked with psychoanalytically, without the need to fall back on Enlightenment claims to objectivity or on modernist rationalism, empiricism, and reductionism. The book’s chief strategy in this is to revisit some of the common intellectual sources of postmodernism itself: the critiques of Enlightenment embodied in phenomenology and existentialism, notably in Heidegger’s philosophy, and in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The majority of the contributors draw on these and related sources; with a couple of exceptions, they are able to help the reader find paths through complex thought without fudging the challenges. Most are from the United States; almost all are spokespersons for the relational school; two, Donna Orange and Robert D. Stolorow, are among its leading lights, and the book is a valuable introduction to relationalism’s variants and philosophical underpinnings. The thrust of the book’s argument is that the relational school, and, in a slightly different way, Kohut’s self-psychology, are developments of post-Freudian theory and practice which uniquely allow practitioners to take
Kaleidoscope Career Model (Sullivan). Contextual approaches are well represented in this book, wi... more Kaleidoscope Career Model (Sullivan). Contextual approaches are well represented in this book, with consideration given to how the self is likely to develop in the context of gender (Heppner and Fu), cultural formulation (Leong, Hardin, and Gupta), and social class (Blustein et al.). Blustein has sought to formulate an inclusive theory of working, aiming to accommodate those individuals who, by dint of what can be referred to as their existential position of ‘thrownness’ or ‘being in the world’ (Heidegger, 1962), are denied the luxury of ‘occupational choice’. The chapter on cultural formulation highlights the need for counsellors’ multicultural sensitivity, being aware that an intervention technique such as confrontation is counterproductive with clients hailing from a collectivist tradition. The authors apply the Cultural Formulation Approach in an intriguing case of Yong Lee, an 18year-old, single, gay Chinese American, whose counsellor is challenged to help him confront a plethora of multi-cultural conflicts. Some of the chapters offer additional vignettes of illustrative career counselling cases as well as demonstrating how assessment tools can harness the client’s ‘self ’, but the book’s strength lies elsewhere, in updating theoretical approaches in the context of ‘self ’. Developing Self in Work and Career enables the reader to reassess many traditional and modern theoretical formulations. Many of the chapters present overlapping if not redundant concepts via different lexicons, often producing a déjà vu effect. Indeed the editors anticipate that, in light of socio-economic changes, the fields of vocational psychology and career counselling will be shifting their focus from studying career development to investigating how people make meaning through work and career. They foresee the ‘self ’ as occupying a critical role as a unifying construct, linking fields in the social and behavioural sciences. This book deserves a place of honour in the career development literature, perhaps sharing a shelf with a theoretical predecessor, Convergence in Career Development Theories (Savickas & Lent, 1994), another valiant effort aimed at identifying commonalities in vocational theories. In fact, the two volumes have several common contributors.
European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 2020
This engaging symposium opens up the question of therapeutic work with young adults in a consiste... more This engaging symposium opens up the question of therapeutic work with young adults in a consistently engrossing way that is refreshingly unpredictable and richly diverse. Particularly important is the appropriately extensive space given to the cultural context of therapy in late modernity; the impact and implications of the Zeitgeist for working therapeutically with young adults; the contested place of training with this client group; and the demonstration of thoughtful and sensitive clinical work with a client group whose ‘emerging-adulthood-in-process’ necessitates that therapists do all they can not to get in the way of the complex developmental struggles of the troubled young adults who find their way into therapy.
The revised Early Years Foundation Stage is a slimmed down document that takes on board many of t... more The revised Early Years Foundation Stage is a slimmed down document that takes on board many of the recommendations from the Tickell Review, but is it stuck in an outmoded education paradigm?
1. In the United Kingdom at the start of the twenty-first century, critical reflection on the pla... more 1. In the United Kingdom at the start of the twenty-first century, critical reflection on the place of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) in current therapeutic practice, and in the prevalent cultural discourse around well-being and'happiness'(Layard, 2005), has ...
... that both strongly embraces aspects of psychodynamic, humanistic, existential-phenomenologica... more ... that both strongly embraces aspects of psychodynamic, humanistic, existential-phenomenological, postmodern and ... is a viable move in the face of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy's (CBT) National ... as a perverse defence fostering an as if relationship between government and ...
In this paper I revisit the theme of therapy training, examined in this journal a decade ago in H... more In this paper I revisit the theme of therapy training, examined in this journal a decade ago in House (1996. I first outline what I mean by the term “trans-modern” in the context of debates about “postmodern” and deconstructive approaches to therapy. I then explore the configuration that therapy training might plausibly take when technological rationality's positivistic certainties are dramatically undermined, and the path to becoming a therapy practitioner coheres more closely with the trans-modern, “New Paradigm” Zeitgeist–a world-view which both acknowledges the (albeit unbalanced) contributions of modernity, yet takes us well beyond modernity's constraining limitations. To illustrate my argument I focus on and problematize the role of theory in therapy training. I conclude with some speculations about plausible paths that a trans-modern approach to therapy training might profitably take in future.
European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 2009
The title of this book might intimidate – is there something beyond the bracing rigours and chall... more The title of this book might intimidate – is there something beyond the bracing rigours and challenging opacities of a Lyotard, Foucault, Baudrillard, or Derrida, something more penetrating and subversive than the postmodern critique of knowledge, dogmatism and totalising certainties? The theory-shy psychotherapist-reader can breathe a small sigh of relief; the suggestive ‘beyond’ does not signpost a journey to impossible new frontiers of postmodern scepticism – only perhaps towards a wary recognition of theory’s limitations. On the other hand, the contributors do not take the line that there was a ‘postmodern moment’ beyond which we can now happily say we have passed; the book does not deny postmodern continental philosophy’s immense and enduring contributions to the human sciences over the last fifty years. Its overall aim, summed up in Donna Orange’s fine editorial postscript, is to re-assert that there are ‘‘forms of human life we must take seriously’’, things with which the most radical, relativising postmodernism has had trouble engaging: ‘‘complexity, agency, self-experience, mutual understanding, suffering and trauma’’ (p. 231). Beyond Postmodernism seeks to show us how these givens of human need and experience can be understood and worked with psychoanalytically, without the need to fall back on Enlightenment claims to objectivity or on modernist rationalism, empiricism, and reductionism. The book’s chief strategy in this is to revisit some of the common intellectual sources of postmodernism itself: the critiques of Enlightenment embodied in phenomenology and existentialism, notably in Heidegger’s philosophy, and in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The majority of the contributors draw on these and related sources; with a couple of exceptions, they are able to help the reader find paths through complex thought without fudging the challenges. Most are from the United States; almost all are spokespersons for the relational school; two, Donna Orange and Robert D. Stolorow, are among its leading lights, and the book is a valuable introduction to relationalism’s variants and philosophical underpinnings. The thrust of the book’s argument is that the relational school, and, in a slightly different way, Kohut’s self-psychology, are developments of post-Freudian theory and practice which uniquely allow practitioners to take
Kaleidoscope Career Model (Sullivan). Contextual approaches are well represented in this book, wi... more Kaleidoscope Career Model (Sullivan). Contextual approaches are well represented in this book, with consideration given to how the self is likely to develop in the context of gender (Heppner and Fu), cultural formulation (Leong, Hardin, and Gupta), and social class (Blustein et al.). Blustein has sought to formulate an inclusive theory of working, aiming to accommodate those individuals who, by dint of what can be referred to as their existential position of ‘thrownness’ or ‘being in the world’ (Heidegger, 1962), are denied the luxury of ‘occupational choice’. The chapter on cultural formulation highlights the need for counsellors’ multicultural sensitivity, being aware that an intervention technique such as confrontation is counterproductive with clients hailing from a collectivist tradition. The authors apply the Cultural Formulation Approach in an intriguing case of Yong Lee, an 18year-old, single, gay Chinese American, whose counsellor is challenged to help him confront a plethora of multi-cultural conflicts. Some of the chapters offer additional vignettes of illustrative career counselling cases as well as demonstrating how assessment tools can harness the client’s ‘self ’, but the book’s strength lies elsewhere, in updating theoretical approaches in the context of ‘self ’. Developing Self in Work and Career enables the reader to reassess many traditional and modern theoretical formulations. Many of the chapters present overlapping if not redundant concepts via different lexicons, often producing a déjà vu effect. Indeed the editors anticipate that, in light of socio-economic changes, the fields of vocational psychology and career counselling will be shifting their focus from studying career development to investigating how people make meaning through work and career. They foresee the ‘self ’ as occupying a critical role as a unifying construct, linking fields in the social and behavioural sciences. This book deserves a place of honour in the career development literature, perhaps sharing a shelf with a theoretical predecessor, Convergence in Career Development Theories (Savickas & Lent, 1994), another valiant effort aimed at identifying commonalities in vocational theories. In fact, the two volumes have several common contributors.
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Papers by Richard House