Using the work of Foucault, this study examines changing notions of the self and identity and how psychological and sociological discourses have conceptualized and constituted adolescence/youth as the primary client in school counseling. Case studies of mental hygiene films in the United States and a moral panic in New Zealand are used to examine how youth were morally constituted in the postwar period—a time when guidance counseling emerged in Western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The author uses Foucault’s notion of governmentality to critically examine how counseling professionalized itself as a disciplinary body.
This book is targeted at practicing counselors, counseling students and counselor theoreticians. It will also find audiences with graduate students in youth studies and those interested in the work and applications of Michel Foucault.


One of the best things that I can say about this book is that it had a personal impact. It nudged me into re-thinking various aspects of my work. It is a book that achieves a rare thing. It talks about counseling young people without getting so caught up in the detail of practice that it loses sight of the big picture …I believe that school counselors who engage with this work will find that their practice is never quite the same again. They will be invited to think about things they have previously taken for granted and to listen to young people in new ways.


John Winslade, Coordinator of Counselor Education, California State University San Bernardino. Co-Author of Narrative Counseling in Schools: Powerful & Brief.

Translated by: David Riff