Ethics and Anxiety

I've been asked to teach an ethics seminar in the Spring to our local chapter of the Texas Counseling Association. The subject of ethics generally annoys me. I realize this could be due to my own lack of ethics, but I actually think its more because I believe that the whole subject of ethics within professional organizations has been highjacked by anxiety.

For myself, ethical behavior is to be defined by two broad principles.

1. I must never use the natural power differential in my relationship to a client for personal advantage.
2. An effective therapy relationship is redemptive for the client.

These principals, like all principals, require that the clinician be quite mature and exercise careful judgment. However, as Jesus pointed out on more than a few occasions, we humans don't like principals. They make us anxious. We prefer rules. Rules are much safer.

So, ethics boards, at least therapy ethics boards come up with rules like, "No dual relationships." This means that I'm not supposed to be a therapist for, say, my proctologist. The fear is that I, as a therapist, MIGHT be tempted to parlay my special relationship with this good doctor into a FREE PROCTOLOGY EXAM!

Now, there's no doubt that clinicians have fallen prey to such temptations. I suspect that its been more common for a clinician to get an extra good deal from a client who is a car salesman that from said medical expert, but you get my point.

Well, this sort of stuff makes ethics boards anxious, and so rules are produced... like...

• Since there are a few idiotic and unethical clinicians among us who abuse client relationships, we're going to decide that all of you don't have enough sense to use good judgement.

Because I DO happen to be a reactive, narcsissitic maverick who tends to think that rules are for everyone else, I figure I need to see if there is hard research other there that actually speaks to the validity of the sort of ethics dictums that are common. I've done some initial research on my own. I can't find anything.

So, if you know of research - good scientific method type research - related to these concerns, would you please make note of that in the comments section?

Redemptive Confrontation

Two friends have "confronted" me concerning something I had written that they both found troubling and offensive. They each took the risk of being very direct and honest with me about it. In considering what they had to say, I had to conclude they were right.

I draw attention to it here because it seems so rare that people are willing to express love in this way. So often we use the excuse of not wanting to offend to justify a lack of full honesty. When we do so, we put a lid on the potential for that relationship.

Of course, sometimes I have been confronted over an issue, and I've disagreed with the person's point of view. This situation challenges the relationship in an additional way, but also offers an additional avenue to intimacy. At times like that, I try to say something like, "I'm so grateful that you've brought this up with me, but, if I'm honest, I've got to say that I think you are wrong on this one. But I also want to make sure I'm understanding you right..."

Redemptive confrontation can be so hard to develop, but its one of the best ways to assess who your best friends are, or determine the health of your marriage. Any relationshp that can handle RD, is a good relationship.

And to the friends who spawned these thoughts.... Thank you again.

A few resources that might interest you...

The Precarious Present is a fascinating article on trauma by Dr. Robert Scaer MoodGYM is a free online program to help persons address depression and anxiety by identifying and changing negative thinking patterns. MoodGym is based on the priciples of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Unconditional Love is an episode of This American Life. The bi-line for this program is: "Stories of unconditional love between parents and children, and how hard love can sometimes be in daily practice"