Subject, object: Overlapping discursive effects?

Abstract

The theories of subjectification developed by Judith Butler and Bronwyn Davies from Foucault’s writing can provide a powerful reading of the moment by moment production of a counsellor and her client. However in the midst of a doctoral research project I became interested in the ways in which hegemonic discourses of state power influenced the production of some counselling relationships as was apparent in some accounts of practice in my data. I found that Butler and Davies’ theories of subjectification only provided a partial explanation for these situations. I returned to Foucault and reconsidered his concept of the discursive object and also his references to the objectivization of the subject to produce a more satisfactory theorizing of the effects of hegemonic discourse on the moment by moment production of counsellor, client and the counselling relationship.