Counseling Youth: Foucault, Power and the Ethics of Subjectivity

by Tina (A.C.) Besley

Using the work of Foucault, this study examines changing notions of the self and identity and how psychological and sociological discourses have conceptualized and constituted adolescence/youth as the primary client in school counseling. Case studies of mental hygiene films in the United States and a moral panic in New Zealand are used to examine how youth were morally constituted in the postwar period—a time when guidance counseling emerged in Western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The author uses Foucault’s notion of governmentality to critically examine how counseling professionalized itself as a disciplinary body.

Genres: Psychology

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[s_evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well researched and I like her style!

Foucault Theory gives so much power to disenfranchized youth - works for me professionally!