Ethical Issues in the Psychotherapies [Hardcover]

Mental health professionals face many complex questions in the course of their work with clients and patients. Among the most difficult are dilemmas that involve ethical issues. This book presents a forthright exploration of these dilemmas and the ethical considerations they raise. Drawing on extensive interviews, the author identifies common ethical problems that practitioners encounter. What happens, for example, when personal interests intrude into therapy? How can the therapist make an accurate assessment of his or her appropriateness as a care provider for a particular patient? What about confidentiality? How are problematic financial arrangements best addressed? The author goes on to show how these dilemmas may be intensified by the unique assumptions of different therapeutic orientations--individual, group, family, marital, and organizational--and how professionals can learn from such experiences to better understand and apply their particular approach. This analysis--and the words of the therapists themselves--provide both a guide to practice and a unique store of experience for the growing number of researchers and students concerned with ethical problems in psychotherapy.

1. Mental Health, Healing, and Ethical Values
2. The Uses of Persuasion in Psychotherapy
3. The Therapeutic Alliance
4. Individual Psychotherapy
5. Couple and Family Therapies
6. Group and Organization Therapies
7. Legal and Forensic Issues
8. Toward Ethical Psychotherapy Practice

This book goes a long way toward identifying and addressing major ethical issues facing the practitioner of psychotherapy. Lakin even suggests that therapists can improve the quality of their services when they become interested in and concerned about about ethical issues related to their everyday practice. Covering a broad spectrum of topics, from the ethical challenges of individual psychotherapy to ethical issues with legal implications and the reverse, the book l£1