The Value of Social Constructionism for the Counseling Profession: A Reply to Hansen

Abstract

The authors reply to J. T. Hansen's (2005) call for the profession to revalue the inner subjective experiences (ISE) of clients. Hansen argued that social constructionism has influenced the decline of the counseling profession by obscuring its unique focus on ISE. The authors maintain that social constructionism is a useful framework for counseling, and they articulate a social constructionist position for counseling. Hansen's reasons for arguing that ISE must be revalued are discussed along with future directions for social constructionism and counseling.

A holistic social constructionist perspective to enterprise education

“…Furthermore, the authors acknowledge the limitations of the Social Constructionist perspective. This perspective has not been readily embraced by every theorist as its ideas are feared to have the potential to contribute to a collapse of the individualistic paradigm, as advocated by Constructivists (Rudes and Guterman, 2007).…”

Self in career theory and counselling: a discourse analysis perspective

“…This is a difficult paradigmatic shift for counsellors, who may assume that counselling psychology has at least some self-evident and stable concepts on which to base their research and practice. Discourse analysis also aims to shift counsellors' views from valuing internal conceptions of the self to relational ones (Miller, 2008;Rudes & Guterman, 2007). White (1997) cautions us not to be "unwitting accomplices in the reproduction of the dominant and culturally sanctioned versions of identity, of the popular and revered forms of personhood, of the most familiar and mainstream subjectivities" (p. 227).…”

Counseling and Psychoanalysis: Advancing the Value of Diversity

“…As the multicultural movement expanded, and theorists began to note certain practical and philosophical problems with using the postmodernist ideology of individual constructivism as a basis for counseling interventions, the element of postmodernism that emphasized the social construction of reality began to become preeminent in counseling theorizing (Rudes & Guterman, 2007). Thus, social constructionism, which highlights the ways in which groups create realities, became a foundational ideology for the counseling profession (Hansen, 2004).…”

“…Arguably then, the counseling profession has used modernism to advance the value of diversity, unlike alternative helping professions, which used modernism to categorize human differences as either normal or pathological. It is noteworthy that humanism, because it emphasized the individual construction of reality, provided a valuable bridge to postmodernist ideology (Rudes & Guterman, 2007).…”