Is Teaching Becoming Therapy?

November 2008

Described in the national press as ‘a bombshell of a book’, a ’wake up call’ to teachers, and as ‘the one book you should buy this year’, Kathryn  Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes’ new book 'The  Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education' has started a national debate about the state of education today.

Ecclestone and Hayes argue that new initiatives in education to enhance self-esteem, or emotional well-being, or to teach ‘happiness’, reflect the therapeutic culture we inhabit. But there is no escape from therapy culture in ordinary lessons where activities such as ‘circle time’ are commonplace and where other initiatives such as peer mentoring and buddy schemes all adopt a therapeutic language and mindset.

Teachers, parents, and policy makers adopt the language and mindsets appropriate to therapy when working with children. The 'therapeutic turn' in education is not a harmless development but one that is damaging to all children. It makes them dependent rather than autonomous individuals. The problem for all teachers is that promoting a diminished view of children and young people is now the basis of our profession, where rewards are given for promoting the view that children can't cope.

For the first time in history, teachers are creating a hapless and hopeless generation. Ecclestone and Hayes have set themselves the target of reversing the therapeutic turn in education.

The November salon will allow teachers and others to hear the arguments from one of the authors and decide for themselves the implications of the rise of therapeutic education.

Dennis Hayes is Head of the Centre for Professional Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, and a Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes University.