Abstract
Case formulation is the rhetorical centerpiece of counseling. Case formulation arises from empirical assessment and directs evidence-based intervention. Case formulation emanates from an epistemology that is enlivened in an arcane rhetoric. Case formulation speaks to the ontology of life and an axiology for living a good life. Case formulation is defined by and concomitantly defines the counselor. In the interpersonal dynamic of counseling, the counselor cannot be any other than the one who conceptualizes the life of the other—the client. The counselor’s rhetoric is an aesthetic form found within a very specific discourse that construes the mental life of the client and ipso facto, the counselor. It is in the conceptualization of the case that the counselor is revealed, consciously or unconsciously, through the rhetoric used to objectify the life of another. Here, we focus on the professional practice of case formulation as a highly specialized aesthetic of counseling practice.
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McIlveen, P., Creed, A. (2018). Counseling Case Formulation as Metaphor. In: Di Fabio, A., Bernaud, JL. (eds) Narrative Interventions in Post-modern Guidance and Career Counseling. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98300-4_5
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