FROM PROCESS CONSULTATION TO A CLINICAL MODEL OF
DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE
ABSTRACT
This paper argues that two related concepts, process consultation and, in
particular, the clinical perspective, developed by the organisational
psychologist Edgar Schein, can improve the understanding, teaching and
conduct of development practice. Process consultation which is more
than just the application of so called process approaches and the clinical
perspective are described, and the case for them is put, in relation to
contrasts with ethnography and action research and in the light of
contemporary debates about development studies and practice. Five
particular aspects of the clinical model the primacy of the” helpful
intervention”, the subservience of science to helping, its client centredness,
it recognition of interventionists’ financial and political status, and its
overt normativeness are seen as particularly relevant to development
practice. In conclusion, the clinical model is seen to pose four challenges
for development studies the creation of development's own theory of
practice, the establishment of rigorous practitioner training programmes,
the consequent institutional change, and an acknowledgement of the
implications of development studies’ disciplinary biases
1
we cannot understand the world fully unless we are involved in some way
with the processes that change it