Professionalization of counseling through theory-grounded practice: are the ideas of man covered by psychological theories still up-to-date?

Abstract

Counseling is grounded in psychological theories, which come either from clinical psychology or from organizational psychology. Each have ideas of man as a basic concept, though each theoretical approach seems to have its own special perspective. None of these different approaches serves as an appropriate theoretical basis for counseling in the post-modern society. There will be discussed, if cross-disciplinary theories of the subject instead might contribute to a general theory of counseling. Finally Grounded Theory as proposed by Glaser and Strauss is suggested as a method for generating a more appropriate theoretical basis of professional counseling.

Keywords

• Theory grounded practice of counseling
• ideas of man
• Clinical and organizational psychology as theoretical basis
• postmodern theories of the subject
• grounded theory
• professional counseling