Week 6

Ah that word "eclecticism" surfaces again! I have always thought of this word favorably and really first heard about it years ago as a decorating style. You know mismatched chairs at a dining room table, mixed woods (how daring!) in your living room and so on. I must admit part of me likes the symmetry that comes from three matching chairs on one side of the table and three matching chairs on the other side of the table. It is comfortable...you know what you are getting. Isn't that where counselors can run into problems? Getting so comfortable with one approach that we are hesitant or forget that there may be a better "chair" for our client to sit in? Does one chair really fit all? I don't think so.

I turned to my beloved Webster's Dictionary (Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed) and looked up eclectic. It says, "selecting what appears best in various doctrines, methods, or styles". I also looked at the word origin (I love etymology!) and the word eclectic comes from the Greek words that mean "to collect" and "to gather". If applied to the counseling profession, I would think that eclecticism means selecting the best method/style to work with each individual client. Maybe this is too simplistic but I think it is easy to overlook as the Nelson article pointed out. "Numerous authors have written about the limitations on counseling outcomes that can result from practicing from a single theoretical lens,..." (2002).

I remember back in Theory and Practice I when Dr. Gardner talked about electicism in regard to counseling. At first I thought she was speaking about it negatively, and after working with a few clients and reading this article by Nelson,  I can better understand both sides of the argument. While I do not believe that that eclecticsm is always the right approach, I think that it may be a useful approach for many clients. Some counselors may only be able to operate looking out of a single lens, and some clients may benefit from that monocular approach. I think that many more may be able to work through their issues when counselors use technical eclecticism. "Technical eclecticism, on the other hand, is the judicious selection of techniques that have been empirically demonstrated to be effective for certain types of individuals with particular types of complaints." (Nelson, 2002).

As school counselors, most of our clients don't get to choose their counselors. They get us! While some may have additional counseling outside of school, our clients will vary greatly with needs and wants. We need to be ready to assist them in the best way and that means while we may operate from a particular lens (say Solution-Focused), we need to be flexible to adapt to and use what lens (or chair!)will serve our client the best.




Nelson, M.L. (2002). An assessment-based model for counseling strategy selection. Journal
     Counseling & Development, 80, 416-421.