Arguably, the defining feature of the counseling profession is an appreciation for human diversity. Early counseling movements emphasized individual diversity, while multiculturalism and social justice highlighted cultural diversity. The author maintains that contemporary psychoanalytic thought can supply a needed intraindividual diversity…

The construct of self-awareness is highly valued by the counseling profession. However, the foundational assumptions that support this construct have not been systemically examined and critiqued. The author provides an overview of self-awareness in light of humanistic, psychoanalytic, and postmodernist ideologies. The author concludes that the…

The counseling profession has strongly identified with the multicultural movement. Nevertheless, postmodernism, which is the ideological foundation of multiculturalism, has had relatively little impact on other segments of the profession. The author argues that many realms of the counseling profession are locked within modernism and could be…

Theories of counseling process are founded on a logical contradiction in that they are simultaneously objectivist and constructivist in nature. Because this epistemic tension is present across diverse theories and has persisted throughout the history of counseling theorizing, the author argues that it has implications for the structure of human…

Counseling theories have traditionally been considered within a modernist epistemology. Reconsidering theories from a postmodern vantage point opens up new possibilities for theory utilization in the counseling process. The author discusses 3 of these possibilities--theories as narrative structures, theoretical truth redefined as pragmatic…

Theoretical integration refers to the conceptual unification of diverse counseling approaches. Contends that the general failure of integrative attempts is a by-product of the modernistic epistemic context in which the systems were considered and proposes an examination of common narrative features of counseling approaches in a postmodern…

Both postmodernism and humanism place a high value on individual differences in meaning systems. However, there are significant theoretical barriers to integrating these systems into a counseling orientation. A theoretical integration is proposed, along with implications for counseling practice. The purpose of this article is to explore the…