Editorial: Poststructuralism and the impact of the work of Michel Foucault in counselling and guidance

Abstract

Interest in poststructuralism, the work of Foucault and, in particular, narrative therapy has developed considerable momentum in the social sciences in general and in counselling in particular throughout the world. It is timely therefore that the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling provides this symposium as a focal point and a means of stimulating further debate on some of these ideas. From the 1990s some papers in the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling have discussed the narrative approach to counselling, traditional assumptions of the self, social constructionism, Foucault's work and narrative therapy (see Besley, 2002). However, there has been little sustained engagement with the conceptual framings underpinning these ideas and approaches, nor their implications for practice. This symposium is an attempt to provide such a focus and is co-edited by Tina Besley and Richard Edwards. It explores the major philosophical movement of poststructuralism with particular emphasis on the work of Michel Foucault and how this has in turn influenced research and practice in guidance and counselling. One major implication has been the formulation of narrative therapy by Michael White and David Epston in Australia and New Zealand in the late 1980s (White & Epston, 1990). Over the last 15 years or so, White and Epston's version of narrative therapy has been introduced all over the world. So it is with pleasure that we present a symposium by an international authorship and which includes a paper that has David Epston as one of the co-authors.