Responsibility and Ethico-moral Values in Counselling and Psychotherapy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65828/6zg32s75Abstract
This paper reviews notions of responsibility relating to the provision of counselling and psychotherapy. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy (2002) speaks of ethics that should consider 'values', 'principles' and 'personal qualities', and that 'principles direct attention to important ethical responsibilities'; but in what way are these constituted as a responsibility in the therapeutic encounter, and how or why are they framed as ethics or morality? It is argued that responsibility infers an 'other' to whom one is responsible. In so far as responsibility is a formulation of value, it is circumscribed by considerations of ethics, morality and power, all of which can impinge on the therapeutic encounter. It is therefore important to trace the development of these elements as we practice them in the therapeutic encounter.
Complete access to the full archive of articles is available with SEA membership. Existing members: please log in with your membership password to view full text. Non-members can buy a single article or issue by registering an account on this website, then selecting a padlocked full text button to purchase.
References
Angus, I. (2000). (Dis) figurations: Discourse/Critique/Ethics. London: Verso Press.
BACP. (2002). Ethical framework for good practice in counselling and psychotherapy. Available from http://www.bacp.co.uk
Baudrillard, J. (2001). [1972] The political economy of the sign. In Poster, M. (ed) Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Cambridge: Polity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503619630
Bauman, Z. (1996). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Bond, T. (1993). Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action. London: Sage Publications Limited.
Borch-Jacobsen, M. (1998). The Laughter of Being. In Botting, F. and Wilson, S. (eds) Bataille: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Clarkson, P. (2000). Ethics: Working with Ethical and Moral Dilemmas in Psychotherapy. London and Philadelphia: Whurr Publications.
Cooper, M., and Blair, C. (2002). Foucault's ethics. Qualitative Enquiry, 8 (4), 511-531. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004008004007
Derrida, J. (1994). Spectres of Marx – Chapter: What is ideology? Available from http://www.marxists.org/ DOI: https://doi.org/10.64590/jrf
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2000). Ethics. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Fiumara, G.C. (1990). The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening. London and New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203713549
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. Trans. Sheridan Smith, A.M. London: Tavistock Publications Limited. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203604168
Gans, S. (1997). Lacan and Levinas: Towards an ethical psychoanalysis. Journal of British Society for Phenomenology, 28 (1) 30-48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.1997.11007182
Harrington, D.R. (1994). Responsible subjectivity: Levinas and humanistic psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 22, 39-52. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08873267.1994.9976935
Heidegger, M. (1971). Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Hofstader, A. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
Heidegger, M. (1975). Early Greek Thinking. Trans. Farrell Krell, D. and Capuzzi, F. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
House, R. (1999). 'Limits to therapy and counselling': Deconstructing a professional ideology. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 27 (3), 377-392. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03069889908256278
Kritzman, L. (ed) (1988). Michel Foucault. London and New York: Rouledge.
Kunz, G. (1998). The Paradox of Power and Weakness. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Levin, D.M. (1998). Tracework: Myself and others in the moral phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Levinas. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 6 (3) 345-392. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/096725598342037
Levinas, E. (1969) Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
Loewenthal, D. (1996). The postmodern counsellor: some implications for practice, theory, research and professionalism. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 9 (4), 373-381. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09515079608258715
Loewenthal, D. and Snell, R. (1999). Ethics as practice: Levinas and the postmodern therapist. Journal of the society for existential analysis, 11 (1) 136-43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.65828/jrqkf087
Niebuhr, H.R. (1963). The Responsible Self. New York: Harper and Row.
Oxford English Dictionary (2000). Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pilgrim, D. (1992). Psychotherapy and political evasions. In Dryden, W. and Feltham, C. (eds) Psychotherapy and its discontents. London: Open University Press.
Powell, J. (1996). Derrida for Beginners. London: Writers and Readers Publication.
Ramsay, S. J. (2002). Unnatural language: Computers, texts, and the algorithm criticism. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Virginia, available from: http://busa.village.virginia.edu/dmachines/diss/diss.html.
Reynolds, J. (2001). The other side of Derridean deconstruction: Levinas, phenomenology and the question of responsibility. Minerva – An Internet Journal of Philosophy, 5, 31-62, available from: http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol5/derrida.html
Rorty, R. (1967). The Linguistic Turn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rorty, R. (1980). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Oxford and Chicago: Blackwell Publishers. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400833061
Rorty, R. (1995). Toward a post-metaphysical culture. Harvard Review of Philosophy, Spring 1995, 58-66.
Rorty, R. (2001). To the Sunlit Uplands. London Review of Books, 24 (21).
Rowe, D. (1987). Avoiding the big issues and attending to the small. In Fairbairn, S. and Fairbairn , G. (eds) Psychology, Ethics and Change. London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited.
Smail, D. (1987). Psychotherapy and change: some ethical considerations, In Fairbairn, S. and Fairbairn, G. (eds) Psychology, Ethics and Change. London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited.
Todd, S. (2001). Guilt, Suffering and responsibility. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 35 (4), 597-614. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.00247
Williams, B. (1993). Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203828281
Williams, R.N. and Gantt, E.E. (1998). Intimacy and heteronomy: On grounding psychology in the ethical. Theory and Psychology, 8 (2), 253-267. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354398082010
