Instructor Commentary: Postmodern and Social Constructionist Approaches to Counselling Theory

Instructor Commentary: Postmodern and Social Constructionist Approaches to Counselling Theory

Jeff Chang

Postmodernism and social constructionism are terms that you may have heard bandied about. If you are like most newcomers to counselling, it is difficult to know how these grand-sounding terms can fit into your developing counselling theory. If you have studied other disciplines, such as anthropology, architecture, art, cultural studies, educational theory, gay/lesbian studies, literature and literary criticism, philosophy, religion, sociology, or women’s studies, you may have studied approaches or authors who were identified as or who identified themselves as “postmodern” (or “post-modern”). And you may have encountered other terms, such as “post-structural” or “discursive.” If you’ve tried to read postmodern authors before, you may have had the experience of wading through miles of knee-deep mud to get to the point. In this brief commentary, I would like to accomplish three things: help you distinguish between some of the terms that may be confusing because they have overlapping but different meanings, introduce you to some of the key ways of thinking that postmodern or social constructionist invites, and suggest how this can be useful to you as a beginning counselling student.

Defining Postmodernism

Postmodernism has been described as “an amorphous term that may refer to a historical period, to a variety of loosely connected ideas, and/or to an ‘attitude’ toward life” (Miller & de Shazer, 1998, p. 370). I suggest that you think of postmodernism not as a theory of counselling, but as an approach to knowledge, a way to think about what you know and how you know it. A modernist worldview suggests that there are objective realities that can be discovered, that there is one truth that is there to be pursued. Parry and Doan (1994, p. 9) identified several overarching narratives that exist in western culture that are reflections of the pursuit of truth: Science as the Hope of a Better Future,Progress,Democracy and the Triumph of the People,and The Self and Its Esteem. Postmodern thinkers resist attempts to define postmodernism, but that’s not much help to you as you struggle through the development of your theory of counselling. What is clear is that a postmodern approach rejects a universal foundation for knowledge – the pursuit of one truth. The search for universal truth is replaced by “a respect for difference of the regional, local, and particular” (Jencks, 1992, p. 11). Postmodernism rejects the idea that we perceive the world in “objective reality.” So, think about postmodernism as an approach to knowledge that rejects universal truth claims, seeks pluralism and local or particular expressions of utility, and is critical and reflective with respect to knowledge claims and the discourses that support them.

Post-Structuralism

Post-structuralism is another term you may run across in your travels, and it overlaps with postmodernism. Structuralism is the idea that a phenomenon can be understood by understanding its underlying structures. For instance, structural linguistics (Gordon, 1996) suggests that meaning is found within the structure of a whole language rather than in the analysis of individual words. For Marxists, the truth of human existence can be understood by an analysis of economic structures. Psychoanalysts attempted to understand human behaviour by understanding the structures of the mind – the id, ego, and superego. In fact, most theories of personality suggest that there are underlying structures or mechanisms that drive people’s behaviour. Structuralists believe individuals are shaped by underlying structures over which they have no control, but that actually exist and can be objectively discovered.

However, post-structuralist thinkers reject the practice of seeking to understand underlying structures (de Shazer, 1994; White, 1995). The French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (Horrocks & Jevtic, 1999) is probably the best known post-structuralist thinker. In contrast to the structuralists, Foucault asserted that the underlying structures used to explain the human condition were wedded to culturally specific discourses, and that it is impossible to step outside of discourse and understand any phenomenon objectively. We’ll return to the idea of discourse later in this commentary. In any event, in counselling practice, a post-structuralist approach translates into a reduced emphasis on the underlying psychological structures that are thought to cause problems and a focus on solutions and preferred futures.

Social Constructionism

In this section, I will describe how social constructionism describes how language constructs social reality, how discourse shapes human life, and how local conversations shape identity. Then I will discuss a social constructionist approach to knowledge.

Language Shapes Social Reality

Social constructionism views language not as representing an internal reality, but as the means through which mental events are constituted. Gergen (1991) proposed that many of the descriptors used to represent the self (e.g., low self-esteem, authoritarian, externally controlled, repressed, depressed) have only been used recently. He noted that these recent ways of languaging are also pathologizing: “The vocabulary of human deficit has undergone enormous expansion within the past century. We have countless ways of locating faults that were unavailable even to our great-grandfathers” (pp. 13-14). Gergen noted that this vocabulary of deficit spreads from professionals to the public at large, who then see themselves and others this way. Shotter (1993) asserted that we “unknowingly ‘shape’ or ‘construct’ between ourselves… not only a sense of our identities, but also a sense of our own ‘social worlds’” (p. 20). How we talk about things matters. Think about how diagnostic categories such as attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, or bipolar affective disorder shape personal and professional conversations. What would happen in such conversations in the absence of these linguistic constructions?

Here’s another example: the word “homosexual” has only been used as a noun since about the 1860s, when it first appeared in German. Of course, people have been engaging in homosexual behaviour since time immemorial, but the word “homosexual” in that context is an adjective. The use of “homosexual” as a noun opens certain possibilities for action that do not exist otherwise. If there is a class of persons who are homosexuals, then one could chose to align oneself in solidarity with homosexuals, or one could choose, unfortunately, to hate homosexuals, or to view homosexuals as a class of persons who are alienated from God. Whatever one’s choice, these possibilities for action do not exist outside of a particular linguistic construction – that of “homosexual” as a noun.

Discourse

The linguistic construction of social reality occurs at a broad societal-cultural level, and it occurs “on the ground” in our day-to-day conversations; the different levels influence each other recursively. At the societal-cultural level, we live within and tell ourselves big stories about culture and the nature of personhood, which are usually called discourses. Foucault (Horrocks & Jetvic, 1999) focused on how discourse specifies and shapes human life. Discourses are not merely stories, beliefs, or ideas, but organized practices of behaviour. In order to operate in the lives of people, discourses require a number of contexts. The first is a “surface of emergence,” a social and cultural context through which the discourse appears, such as the familyworkplace, or church. “Authorities of delimitation” are also necessary for the emergence of discourse. These are institutions with authority, knowledge, and power, such as the legal and medical professions. Finally, “grids of specification” specify “personhood” and “normality.” By standing back and deconstructing discourses, we can see how they constrain people and where the participants in the discourse are situated.

For example, Spiegel (2005) described how the various versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 1952, 1968, 1980, 1994, 2004) were developed. This process illustrates how the beliefs of a particular group of people (committees that develop the criteria for mental disorders) form a surface of emergence in which authority is exercised and normality or abnormality are defined. The conversations of the DSM’s developers support and are supported by the conversations that mental health professionals have at the local level.

The Constitution of Identities

Social constructionists see language as constitutive (it constructs who we are) as opposed to representational (in which language represents some internal state or underlying reality). The constitutive view of language has implications for how people experience themselves and, as Gergen (1991) put it, how they “construct themselves” (p. 146). Gergen proposed that, through our daily interactions, we develop a “consciousness of construction” (p. 145). He maintained that personal identity is “created and recreated” over time, resulting in one of the most striking assertions of social constructionist thinking: that we do not have essential selves. Instead, our identities are constructed in relation to others: “In the postmodern world, selves may have become the manifestations of relationship, thus placing relationships in the central positions occupied by the individual self for the last several hundred years of Western history” (Gergen, pp. 146-147). Accordingly, as counsellors, the kinds of conversations we have with clients matter a great deal. Some conversations call forth strengths, solutions, preferences, and abilities, and others focus on deficits. These affect clients differently. How we converse with clients matters.

Social Constructionism and Knowledge

Since a social constructionist approach suggests that social reality is constructed in language, it follows that we should view our ideas in the context of the social and cultural contexts from which they emerged. When we claim to know something, we speak from a specific cultural, social, and historical context. Therefore, it is useful to examine the premises and implications of the discourses in which the knowledge claims are embedded, so that we can deconstruct them (Freedman & Combs, 1996; Shotter, 1993; White, 1993). It is also useful to establish and clarify one’s own position, or to situate yourself. A social constructionist view asserts that “there are no essential truths” (Freedman & Combs). Therefore, theories of counselling are no more than stories. A social constructionist view is less focused on the truth of a counselling theory, and more interested in its utility (Amundson, 1996).

Instead of taking for granted our ideas about human functioning and psychological and social problems, a social constructionist thinker would encourage aspiring counsellors to deconstruct counselling and psychological theories by asking these kinds of questions:

• What is the cultural and historical context in which the theory emerged?
• What are the embedded assumptions in this theory?
• How is the theory a response to its times? How does this fit today and how does it not?
• How have these ideas changed over time, in light of cultural and historical developments?
• What is the pragmatic effect of taking up these ideas?
• If I adopt this theory, how will it invite me to behave as a counsellor?
• What is the effect on clients as I perform this theory of counselling?
• How useful is this theory in assisting me to be clear about what to do in the room with clients and how to conceptualize client problems?
• Is the performance of this theory consistent with my own preferences about how I want to behave as a counsellor?

This is not to say that certain theories of counselling are true or false. In some ways, a social constructionist view reduces the pressure for new counsellors to figure out what is right or wrong. Deconstructing theories of counselling can allow you to take a critical stance and make choices about what theories you prefer with your eyes wide open.

So What Should I Do as a New Counsellor?

In my own work, approaching knowledge from a social constructionist stance has permitted me to do several things. First, I have learned to deconstruct the ideas on which my own counselling work is based, namely narrative and solution-focused therapies. I have examined the cultural and historical context in which the ideas arose and examined the assumptions of these models. Secondly, I have situated myself in relation to them. Doing these two things in tandem has helped me become clear and purposeful about what I do as a counsellor. Third, I listen carefully for discourses that stand behind my clients’ clinical problems. It’s not that I do a Foucauldian critique of the discourses in session, but, if it seems relevant, I may deconstruct some of the big stories about gender, relationships, work, and other issues with which clients present. Finally, I keep in mind that the way we converse with our clients matters a great deal. More about this in my commentary on Narrative and Solution-Focused approaches.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (1952). Diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association. Washington, DC: Author.

American Psychiatric Association. (1968). Diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

American Psychiatric Association. (2004). Diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association: Text revision (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Amundson, J. K. (1996). Why pragmatics is probably enough for now. Family Process, 35,473-486.

de Shazer, S. (1994). Words were originally magic. New York: Norton

Freedman, J., & Combs, G., (1996). Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities. New York: Norton.

Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: Basic Books.

Gordon, W. T. (1996). Saussure for beginners. New York: Writers and Readers Press.

Horrocks, C., & Jevtic, Z. (1999). Introducing Foucault. London: Penguin.

Jencks, C. (1992). The post-modern agenda. In C. Jencks (Ed.), The post-modern reader (pp. 10-39). New York: St. Martin’s.

Miller, G., & de Shazer, S. (1998). Have you heard the rumor about… Solution-focused therapy as a rumor. Family Process, 37, 363-377.

Parry, A., & Doan, R. E. (1994). Story revisions: Narrative therapy in a postmodern world. New York: Guilford.

Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational realities: Constructing life through language. London: Sage.

Spiegel, A. (2005). The dictionary of disorder: How one man revolutionized psychiatry. The New Yorker. Retrieved December 1, 2007, from

White, M. (1993). The histories of the present. In S. G. Gilligan & R. Price (Eds.), Therapeutic conversations (pp. 121-135). New York: Norton.

White, M. (1995). Narrative therapy: Interviews and essays. Adelaide, AUS: Dulwich Centre.

GCAP 631 Lesson 2 Commentary 2 p.1