Our Clients, Our Selves

Abstract

It is part of the professional ideology, usually expressed as an ethic of service (McKinlay, 1973), that the professions exist for the benefit of any member of society who has need of their expertise. However, there has been a long crescendo of critical opinion which argues that such claims meet the needs of the professions rather than (or at least more than) they do those of service users (Illich, 1976; Wilding, 1982). Instead of an open association between the expert and the needy, the critical perspective suggests that professionals seek to control the client/patient, not only in the form of power exercised over individuals, but also to the extent of the capacity to define who and what a client/patient is and should be. The processes of becoming and being clients/patients serve as part of the definition and maintenance of professional boundaries with the rest of society.