The use of abstraction as oppression in counseling: an attempt to find a new direction for helping

INTRODUCTION Feminism has long been an effective voice in articulating concern about the potential of therapy to either empower people or to maintain oppression through the regulation of behavior in terms of dominant ideologies. Feminist critiques of the "helping professions" have tended to expose the relationship between ideological regulation and therapeutic practices. In this paper I will attempt to make a contribution to that project by exploring an ideological process of abstraction. In particular, I will show how a process of regulating individuals takes place when concrete events are cast into sets of abstractions which are then seen to produce the event. I will argue that this construction of individual behavior is then taken up as validation for professional theories and practices whose origins are in fact located in the ruling apparatus. For a complete reprint of this article contact Haworth Press by telephone (1-800-HAWORTH) or EMAIL (getinfo@haworthpressinc.com). Article copyright The Haworth Press, Inc.