ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the issue of power in therapeutic relationships from a Foucauldian viewpoint. It deals with a summary statement of Michel Foucault’s approach to power and his analysis of surveillance. Foucault’s writings offer a conceptualization of power quite distinct from the ways in which power is viewed in Max Weber and Karl Marx. The near-absence of collective ideological dissent in therapeutic communities and health visiting may reflect the general judgement that resistance is normally localized and specific and only rarely has a unique focal point Foucault’s project was to be a historian, and most researchers who have adopted his approach also followed him in studying documentary materials. Prior to Foucault’s work, the central importance of surveillance as a technique of power was hardly appreciated; it may be that the role of the obverse of surveillance - concealment - has been similarly unappreciated as a technique of resistance.
