Foundational Philosophy of School-based Counseling: Personalism

Tuscan countryside; photograph by Ann Stob 2021 (copyright)

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What philosophy or worldview undergirds helping professionals' (e.g., counselors, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists) orientation to their clients? The research on this question is equivocal. One assumes that orientations and resulting behaviors and beliefs vary substantially and in nuanced ways. However, from clients' perspectives, it appears that they view their caregivers as largely good people, humane, altruistic, compassionate, ethical, and focused on their welfare. By and large, I think this supposition is accurate. Caring professionals, I contend, generally approach their work in a positive, hopeful, and healthy manner, but there are exceptions. When the counseling experience is (becomes) toxic, nonproductive, and feels uncaring, does this reflect a change in the philosophical orientation of the mental health professional?

Before entering the profession, have these professionals genuinely reflected on their underlying philosophy and asked themselves why they believe and act the way they do? What orientation drives their decision-making, actions, and counseling values? Can they name their worldview and philosophical approach? In my opinion, knowing what your underlying orientation truly matters, for it affects how you treat your clients and their families. For example, psychiatrists often adopt the medical model or a bio-social-psychological orientation they learned in medical school, seeing clients as mentally disordered (or not); loosely stated, their patients' health and symptomology are rooted fundamentally within the person's biology. Thus, medications coupled with therapy are often the prescribed treatment.

In my experience, counseling professionals do not fully consider their underlying philosophies (notwithstanding constructivistic approaches). They tend to gravitate to a few theories/therapies that they resonate with, "make sense", and seem to be "effective" at some level with clients. Orbiting around theoretical (therapeutic) models taught in graduate school, is a "shortcut" to meaningful reflection and processing of "who I am as a person". Sharply put, deeper philosophical insightfulness and analysis of the approaches they "adopt" may not be fully encouraged in one's "theories of counseling" coursework. Once professionals enter their practica and internships, time for such in-depth contemplation is at a premium.

Personalism as an Option

I suggest that counselors must situate their counseling methods on a philosophical/worldview that is consonant with their values and life orientation. One alternative, personalism, is strengths-based (assets-focused) and steeped in compassion and love. Specifically, personalism is an orientation to life, a worldview, that focuses on the ultimate value and dignity of human persons. Personalism has many strands that vary from more religious to humanistic perspectives. It is believed that Friedrich Schleiermacher first used the term personalism (German: Personalismus) in 1799.

Furthermore, advocates of personalism suggest that persons are communal by nature, open to, cooperating with, and respecting the viewpoints of others. Proponents generally downplay any reduction of human beings to merely impersonal, deterministic laws. Thus, they are opposed to social Darwinism, strict materialistic principles, naturalistic reductionism, and so on. We are far more than biological organisms, rather we are "spiritual beings" with a higher nature and core. A number of therapies are consonant, in part, with personalism (e.g., humanistic, existential, person-centered psychology, constructivist, positive counseling), many others appear to be aligned with bio-social-psychological mindset, where human functioning is reduced to its various physical and ecological components (e.g., genetic, micro-macrosystems, neurophysical, etc.). The human as a holistic being tends to be jettisoned as it is subjected to deeper scientific analysis.

Advances in positive psychology are closely aligned with personalism. For example, three primary intrinsic psychological needs related to self-determination theory (SDT), an offshoot of positive psychology, are competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Similar to the aims of personalism, SDT suggests that meeting these human needs is essential for facilitating psychological growth and integration, social development, and psychological well-being. Should these needs not be satisfied, human functioning may be less than ideal.

Examples of noted personalists: Borden Bowne, Emmanuel Mounier (France), Pope John Paul II, Martin Luther King Jr., Jacques Maritain, Gabriel Marcel, Dorothy Day, William Stern, Edith Stein (Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), Ngo Dinh Nhu, Ngo Dinh Diem, Václav Havel, among many others.

Resources

Sink and Dice Personalism in SBC Policy Research and Evaluation Typeset 5-2.pdf