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.