So this is a profession....?

I see the mistrust of professionals as a natural and evolving process. The period between 1963 and 1981 where Donald Schon perceives "The Crisis of Confidence in Professional Knowledge" was society awakening to the fact that not all professionals are worthy of the adjective "professional". Hardly a crisis, just things being put into perspective.

The spread of education coupled with the growing power of the media has opened peoples' eyes with the result that they can scrutinize their doctors ,dentists, lawyers, accountants, etc., to their hearts content. Given the bad press that some professionals are getting, it is little wonder if the public has a distrust of all of them.

The present government is on the same bandwagon, opting to put pressure on the professionals wherever possible,wanting to be seen to be acting on our behalf. Certainly not all professionals deserve this treatment and having to make themselves accountable in terms of targets and visible outcomes creates restrictions for those who simply want to be able to do their job properly. I think that "professional artistry" which Schon brings to our attention, has always been in the capacity of some professionals who have found that they could adapt no matter what.

If Career Guidance is becoming devalued as a profession it is because it does not market itself well. When was the last time anyone saw a Careers Adviser on television? There are other professions which have to outrank it in terms of usefulness to society.

Ivan Ellich... has to be the ultimate sceptic of professionalism. He recognises five illusions that professionals use to disable citizens. They have created a nation of consumers to whom they dictate what their needs as consumers are. Professionals manipulate the rest of society so that people see them as indispensable, and make them so by following the trends of the market. My favourite line is this, "Women or men, who have come to depend almost entirely on deliveries of standardized fragments produced by tools that are operated by anonymous others, cease to live human lives, and at best barely survive - even though they do so surrounded by glitter."
In other words professionals have been conditioning society, and change is inevitable the more people realise that this is the case. Still, I think he is just demonstrating a nostalgia for the days when we had to live without electrictity, running water, carpets, a change of clothes, etc., ...a few days on a far-off Scottish island might have changed his attitude!!!