Counselling, Class and Politics: Undeclared Influences in Therapy - Softcover

Her basic point is that "having no political ideology of which we are aware is not at all the same thing as not having any political ideology. On the contrary, our 'unaware' ideology seems to me to be the most potentially influential ideology as far as clients are concerned." In the same way that other repressed or denied material may affect our work, she claims that unrealised and unexplored political attitudes "may well be damaging to some clients". Kearney's last chapter 'On Becoming Respectable' is a sustained attack on the professional organisations of counsellors ... The hidden curriculum of trainings under central control and accreditation, she believes, is to reinforce the denial of class as a factor in counselling. Mary Montaut Inside Out No. 32, Spring 1998

Everything we do is justified by some ideological set of ieas, and counselling as an activity is no exception to this. I ...suggest that one of the reasons why the ideology of counselling is not always apparent to us is that we cannot easily accept that the activities, beliefs and values of counselling may have consequences for some clients which are other than we intend. In other words, it is diffucult for us as counsellors to believe that the ideology of counselling may lead to justifying the subordination of some clients, when what we intend is exactly the opposite. Anne Kearney, p3, Counselling, Class and Politics