The social constructionist model of counseling

Psychology - Counseling

The Social Constructionist Model of Counseling

Social constructionism is a framework that conventionally belongs to the area of epistemology. Social constructionism has grown from a classic shift throughout the last half century in which realist epistemologies, which have directed the majority of intellectual disciplines since the scientific revolution, have been rejected by a lot of people as being flawed. Social constructionism sets forth insinuations for mental health that significantly go away from the realist epistemological policies that standardize most approaches in clinical psychology and psychiatry. In particular, from a social constructionist viewpoint clinical problems are not seen as objective defects but, instead, are understood as inter-subjective linguistic formations that are shaped in conversations between clinicians and clients. Therefore, the objects of change corresponding to traditional clinical theories like irrational beliefs and repressed complexes are also understood as metaphors, rather than as objective representations of the nature of problems and change. As a result, social constructionism challenges the time-honored views held in the behavioral sciences that are predicated on the supposition that it is probable to get objective knowledge as to what is and what is not a problem (Guterman, 1996).

Social constructionists consider that as meaning and understanding are socially constructed, people do have meaning and understanding until they take communicative action. As such, the collaboration between clients and therapists in this communication process is of paramount importance as it opens up new meanings and alternatives in the way of knowing. By adopting this way of knowing, theories are not representations of truths but are different ways of making meaning (Lit & Shek, 2002). "Social constructionism represents the development of ideas in counseling that have been and continue to be influenced by the humanistic tradition" (Rudes & Guterman, 2007).

Since the client is believed to have problems, the counselor or social worker has to formulate treatment goals and propose treatment strategies on the basis of a selected theoretical approach after an in-depth intervention. In other words, the counselor or social worker has to apply the theory into practice during intervention, hoping that the client's problems would be solved or eliminated. However, intervention, according to social constructionists, is a therapeutic conversation. It is also a linguistic event, a joint search and examination through dialogue, a two-way trade of ideas in which new meanings are recurrently evolving toward the dissolving of problems. In other words, the emphasis is not to solve or eliminate the problems but to open space for conversation (Lit & Shek, 2002).

In the eyes of social constructionists, therapists are the coauthors who engage in the coauthoring process with the client together. The therapeutic conversation is believed to be a linguistic event that takes place in the interaction process. Social constructionists further maintain that no one persons understanding could override the others. There is also nonexistence of theoretically formed truths and knowledge (Lit & Shek, 2002).