Counseling, Counseling Psychology, and Liberation Psychology

_______________________________________________________________________________

Project Rainbow

Therapy:

Counseling, Counseling Psychology, and Liberation Psychology

Counseling and counseling psychology are both helping professions devoted to helping people make changes in their lives. Politically, they are distinctly different fields. Counseling is a masters degree, while counseling psychology is a doctoral degree. Counseling psychology is a division of psychology, while counseling is a broader field that encompasses other human service professions in addition to psychology. Philosophically, though, the two fields are very similar. Both fields are preventive in their approach to therapy, dealing with hygiology and "normal" people. This stands in contrast to clinical psychology, which is remedial, dealing with severe psychopathology and abnormalities. Wrenn (1977) maintained that the counselor or counseling psychologist "wants to help individuals toward overcoming obstacles to their personal growth, wherever these may be encountered, and toward achieving optimum development of their personal resources." Putting it slightly differently, Kagan (1977) wrote that the "professional mission [of counseling and counseling psychology] is to deliver the greatest psychological good to the greatest numbers of people" -- a conceptualization reminiscent of the greatest possible happiness principle espoused by John Stuart Mill in Utilitarianism, which forms the core of Mills Utilitarian definition of good. Following this logic just one step further, then, the purpose of both counseling and counseling psychology could be described as doing what is good for others. Such a conceptualization, while understandably vague, helps capture how broad and encompassing the intertwined fields of counseling and counseling psychology have the potential to be.

One major characteristic of both fields is multiculturalism. According to Neimeyer, Bowman, and Stewart (2001), multiculturalism has become "an increasingly prominent feature of counseling psychology ... and one that distinguishes it among its allied specialties." The same is true of counseling as a specialty. Similarly, Watkins (1994) maintained that both counseling and counseling psychology have "made major, seminal contributions to and helped advance knowledge about and understanding of ethnic and nonethnic minorities." Along with this commitment to multiculturalism has come a growing interest in social action, though this is still somewhat controversial in the field. Multicultural psychologists and counselors, social psychologists, peace psychologists, liberation psychologists, and others within the fields of counseling and counseling psychology now argue that merely providing supportive therapy is insufficient -- that practitioners should use their professional power directly, to advocate for the rights of minorities, to oppose oppression, and to actively fight for social change. According to Ivey (1995), "counseling is in the midst of a revolution [emphasizing] ... psychotherapy as liberation."

Joining the fields of counseling and counseling psychology in this revolution is the field of liberation psychology. Liberation psychology is a division of psychology devoted primarily to the liberation of people from oppression. It is a highly political kind of psychology. Liberation psychologists can be counseling psychologists, or they may be other kinds of psychologists, but their primary philosophy is that psychology should be used to help liberate the oppressed. While some psychologists argue that psychology should only be used to make individual interventions and should not take sides in politics, liberation psychologists argue that therapists cannot help to take sides. To do nothing is to side silently with the oppressors, and that, according to liberation psychology, is short-sighted and ethically irresponsible. Thus liberation psychologists advocate for the oppressed, working not only with individuals and families but also with groups, organizations, and even whole subsections of society.

Thus advocacy, social responsibility, and opposition to oppression form a thread which is common to counseling, counseling psychology, and liberation psychology.

* * * *

For more information on counseling psychology, see the website of the American Psychological Association's Division 17 -- Society of Counseling Psychology:

www.apa.org/about/division/div17.html

For more information on counseling, see the website of the American Counseling Association:

www.aca.org

For more information on liberation psychology, see:

www.krysallis.com/krysalis/libpsyc.html or http://royal-inspirations.com

© The name Project Rainbow^©, this website, and all images and text contained herein are copyright © 2004 by Project Rainbow^©. All rights reserved. You may use any information from this website for academic, research, or teaching purposes, just so long as you properly cite Project Rainbow. Just don't steal from us and take credit for it yourself!

_______________________________________________________________________________

Project Rainbow * About the Project * The Aitheros Project

Therapy * Theatre of the Oppressed * Theology of Liberation

Phase 1: Research * Phase 2: Instruction * Phase 3: Community Intervention

_______________________________________________________________________________