Preserving Soul: Rescuing Diversity in the Managed Care Era

Abstract

With the advent of managed care, counselors risk having their approaches codified and limited to those interventions with empirically established outcomes and demonstrated effectiveness. The current emphasis on problem‐solving and solution‐focused counseling, though effective in many ways, is problematic and draws counselors away from deeper, more imaginative ways of working with clients. In this article, managed care approaches are viewed as being part of a larger cultural problem—the loss of soul. Counselors who find the current trends morally and aesthetically unappealing are encouraged to find other ways of surviving in the marketplace.