Psychological Formulation, a Critical Viewpoint: Illness Ideology in Disguise

Recent years have seen a surge of interest by clinical psychologists in the idea of psychological formulation. Interest in this idea has also been shown by humanistic psychologists as evidenced by a recent issue of this journal, in which formulation is offered as a possible antidote to diagnosis. In this article, I examine the idea of formulation from the viewpoint of client-centered therapy, offering a critical perspective and concluding that as formulation is ultimately about identifying a specific pathway for a specific problem, it continues to subtly promote a medical ideology, incompatible with client-centered therapy.