In the last 18 months counsellors have begun debating how income and class are affecting them in the counselling room. This seemed to be a result of the economic crash of 2008: there is less money to go around and counsellors are feeling the results of that as client numbers fall and volunteer work seems to be the only counselling activity on offer.
A minuscule number of counsellors have always been alert to the way that the clients income and background will have an impact on the kind of work that these clients can access, and on the potential for difficulties when meeting people who have a very different experience of life whilst having a great deal of power. But these counsellors have been pointedly ignored. While training courses include exploration of differences in culture this means cultures of sexuality and gender, disability, ethnic or religious backgrounds. I'm not aware of any course that includes a structured, timetabled exploration of how class expresses itself in the individual student and in the training group. Never mind how it emerges in practice, or in the agencies in which every single one of us must use the most vulnerable clients to get our hours. The most vulnerable clients, with problems that are way beyond what seasoned therapists can deal with, are exposed to the least experienced of us. Classism has a profound impact on all minority groups and this is often the only way to get anyone vaguely interested in the subject. It's currently fashionable for therapists not to be racist or transphobic.
When we consider the makeup of counselling groups this becomes less surprising. Since the professionalisation of counselling, where diplomas and other qualifications moved from community settings into universities, the cost of becoming a counsellor went stratospheric. It is not unusual for a 3 year course to cost £30,000. It is quite usual for counselling agencies whose existence, staff wages and founders prestige depend on the unpaid work of students not to provide any or sufficient supervision, which students must self-fund.
This limits counsellor training to people who have a great deal of excess income. It reduces the opportunities to train for anyone who isn't white, who is disabled or otherwise financially disadvantaged. Talking therapists have always been drawn from groups that have the income to support the cost of training and time to reflect and, despite a brief few years when counselling recognised the value to itself of inclusivity, it has returned to an elitist profession which shows no sign of even being aware of this.
This blog is a continuation of the Counselling Class and Income pages that I kept for 3 years before realising that I was speaking into a void. After an interesting discussion on Linkedin I decided that I would try again, this time working towards the creation of a book and courses that can be used in counsellor training and as CPD. Counselling Class and Income offers background to my understanding of economics and politics in relation to counselling - and counselling has never seriously grappled with either subject. Politics and economics flow through our individual lives as blood flows through our veins; it connects and disconnects us from each other; it is central to our experience of the world and we need to grasp them and explore our relationships to them.
If we do it will be uncomfortable. It should be. If it's not uncomfortable how will we know that we're growing?
