TROUBLES BALK AND COUNSELING DISCOURSE - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY

Counseling is a pervasive activity in contemporary institutional life. This article focuses on the ways in which troubles-as socially constr ucted realities-are talked into being in two counseling settings: a Br itish hemophilia center that counsels individuals who have become HIV- positive through the transfusion of infected blood products and a fami ly therapy center in the United States. Drawing upon conversation anal ytic studies of ''troubles talk,'' three major topical and interaction al continuities in the two settings are revealed. They involve trouble definitions, trouble remedies, and accessing the social contexts of c lients' troubles. Using ideas from Foucault, the article analyzes coun seling as a professional technology for inciting troubles talk. As suc h, counseling functions as one of a variety of institutional discourse s within which troubles talk may be elicited and organized, power move s, and people may be constructed as objects of power. The article thus serves as an initial attempt to synthesize strands of Foucauldian and conversation analytic work at an empirical, rather than purely theore tical, level.