Oppression within the counselling room

This paper suggests that the oppression experienced by disabled people in s ociety is sometimes replayed in the counselling room by counsellors who are unaware of their own disablist attitudes and prejudices. Whilst the provis ion of Disability Equality Training (DET) within counselling courses would ameliorate the problem, I believe that disabled people would be most empowe red by a counselling approach which recognises the potential for oppression within the counsellor-client relationship. One solution may be the creatio n of a new counselling approach, disability counselling, which includes the social model of disability as one of the foundations. An alternative solut ion may be found within the emerging counselling approaches that treat coun selling as a social and political process and place emphasis on developing comprehensive anti-discriminately practice.