Contesting the Curriculum: Counsellor Education in a Postmodern and Medicalising Era

Abstract

The psychiatric classification system of DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 5) has become a default commercial and scientific language for helping professionals, especially when it is coupled with evidence-based interventions for addressing human concerns that are understood as diagnosed disorders. Counsellors, however, have traditionally responded - conversationally - to their clients' concerns by drawing from diverse discourses of practice. This is even more the case now that the field of counselling offers popular new postmodern approaches. Tensions between these medicalising developments, pluralistic traditions and postmodern sensitivities in counselling make counsellor education an interesting context of study. From critical document and website reviews, the authors use situational analysis to map medicalising tensions to shape contemporary counsellor education. Their aim is to draw attention to how curricular tensions associated with DSM-5 use may challenge the pluralism that has long been associated with counselling and counsellor education.