Routledge This book must be read and attended to by all practicing psychotherapists, all who in any way need to understand psychotherapy or evaluate it, and all who seek any benefit from psychotherapy. It is not because the book gives answers. It does not and this may well be the most frustrating as well as the greatest strength or the greatest weakness of the book. With an unusual breadth and depth of detail, the book demolishes the myth that psychotherapy is value-free, objective, and supports whatever values or choices a patient may have. No one who reads it can ever again think that what purports to be value-free psychotherapy is anything other than a crypto-missionary endeavor by the therapist. No provider or consumer of psychotherapy can ever again be indifferent to the ethical principles and values of the therapist. In what may be surprising to many, professions are defined by the quality of beneficence. What is professional is what has a beneficent purpose. This is a factor seldom recognized or encouraged by professions. There may be some mention of doing good for individuals and the society in the preambles of ethical codes but little specific observation beyond such global generalizations. The professional codes of ethics that are often the extent of ethical assertions provided are identified as trivial and superficial with no realistic guidance for anyone. The major weakness in ethical codes and committees of professional associations is that those persons appointed to committees are not trained in ethics and exceed their level of competence in attempting to function as ethicists. Unfortunately, there is no assistance provided in assessing the relative worth or effectiveness of the varieties of ethical principles to be found in human life. Rather, the book suggests a process of thinking hard about ethics, and examining options carefully. Here the suggestions for the process are cogent and better than many admonitions offered without any basis other than authority. Nevertheless, the book ends with no clear conclusion. While this book is one of the most persuasive and informative texts available about the human side of ethics in psychotherapy, there is no discussion of the alternative of ethics deriving from revelation and not limited to human initiatives. This can be a strength in that any person can read this book with great benefit and not be forced to discard it as biased. It may also be a weakness in that thinking hard about ethics can hardly avoid the claims of many that authoritative revelation is the source of the ethics they hold to be dispositive. However, to think hard about this issue will require another book. Reviewed by Ralph Underwager, Institute for Psychological Therapies.
|
