Psychotherapy and Counselling Are Too Concerned With Detailed Ethical Issues
My interest in the subject of the purpose of counselling and psychotherapy has a very practical foundation. It springs from the difficulties that I have faced in working at various levels in a large counselling organization. I am not a practitioner in either counselling or psychotherapy. Hence I am not concerned with matters of confidentiality and other detailed ethical issues that face the practitioner. Important though these issues are there are plenty of other sources of advice. I feel that practitioners are overly concerned with detailed and small-scale ethical issues. Consequently the broader and deeper concerns with justice, truth and autonomy are often overlooked. And not just by the practitioners but also by the organizations and the professional bodies who represent them.
A Philosophical Basis for Counselling and Psychotherapy
An articulation of the fundamental purpose of counselling and psychotherapy either does not exist or is well hidden. Other than the preoccupation with confidentiality and professional codes of ethics most other statements concerning fundamental purpose turn out to be a loose collection of unconnected values. Such values are in no way based on a rational or philosophical justification. In my writing on this subject I attempt to address this issue. It is not however an abstract philosophical issue with little relevance to counsellors or psychotherapists. Without a better understanding of this issue the future direction of these services will fail to realize their historic potential for clients and for society as a whole.
See my article on the Purpose of Psychotherapy.
