Thoughts on Knowing: Epistemic Implications of Counseling Practice

Abstract

There are various ways to conceptualize the process of knowing, or epistemology, as it applies to the counseling situation. However, the essential elements of the epistemic literature are often difficult to grasp. The author reviews various epistemic systems, clarifies the ways they enrich the understanding of counseling processes, and proposes a meta‐epistemic system that integrates the elements of the competing systems. He discusses implications of this system for the practice of counseling and provides illustrative case examples.