ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the social construction of all realities and the futility of the psychotherapy professions’ attempts to preserve traditional “truths.” One of the reasons for the crisis in meaning in the mental health professions is the postmodern challenge to all knowledge in all of the professions. Even in the so-called hard sciences, knowledge is increasingly understood as a product of social construction rather than as something which is objectively true or false. The mental health professions have been latecomers to social constructionism. With the focus on the social construction of all beliefs, therapist neutrality—a primary principle of constructivism—was criticized. Social constructionism represents a shift from traditional positivist, objective stances toward knowledge to more interpretive, narrative approaches in which the stories individuals tell are viewed not as objective truths but rather as variations of the stories of culture.
