client or trainee

[Peter Howie]

Dear Adam,

I love your response.

I want to work with your response a bit and play up some things you 
have brought forward.

"- and instead into these directions as my way of doing a bit of 
"sociatry,""   - this is a great way to go - well done.

"my clinical training reasserts itself in noting a crucial 
distinction between the two endeavors. Therapy is more 
fiduciary--which means that the client in therapy is in a more 
vulnerable and dependent role, and this is built-in. There is a real 
power gradient."

This is true and I like to ask the question "why?" and "is it 
required.?" - and I do thins knowing that the research is entirely 
equivocal on this issue. There is definitely a worldview from 
psychology and psychiatry and other healing professions that places 
the healer apart or above the healee. Why is this required? It is 
certainly a conserve in our culture  - the development of dependent 
relationships - they occur in most teaching, training , skill 
developments etc in our culture.

"Education can be more egalitarian, resulting a shift from pedagogy 
to "androgogy." Therapy is less flexible. The society and 
professional peers expect certain standards of professionalism."

The standards of professionalism are generally well reinforced 
cultural conserves and often if not always developed from practice 
rather than from a proven theoretical base. So they tend to serve a 
good purpose and most often "work" but are they defensible on 
philosophical grounds - I don't think so.

This idea I am struggling with is that if the same development can 
occur why would I need to buy into the worldview of psychology when 
there is an educative worldview to buy into - or even better - there 
is a Morenian worldview to work from. There seems to be some 
incongruity that makes psychology the thing about psyche and not 
education.  This is pretty half formed this last bit!

Cheers for now

Peter Howie
Brisbane, Australia 
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