Ethical Issues in Counselling and Psychotherapy: The Background

Ethical issues have their roots in the belief systems of individuals and society. Codes of ethics are seen as attempts to ensure that behaviour accords with these belief systems. An outline model is presented which highlights some aspects of beliefs, feelings and conscious and unconscious processes, and their effects upon the conscious behaviours of the individual. Aspects of social change and context are briefly considered, together with the subsequent effects upon beliefs and ethics, and issues of responsibility.     

Self-forgiveness in Psychology and Psychotherapy: A Critique

This critique proposes that self-forgiveness is a misleading and inaccurate concept for understanding the conditions to which it is applied. Besides the fact that traditional religion provides no rationale for self-forgiveness, four specific criticisms are presented. (1) Self-forgiveness causes splitting of the self—creating various problems. (2) It involves a conflict of interest between the self that judges and the self that is judged. (3) Through its extreme emphasis on the self, it promotes narcissism and appeals to narcissists. (4) Research indicates that interpersonal forgiveness and self or intrapersonal forgiveness involve different psychological processes. We conclude that self-acceptance is a more accurate and useful term for the process and benefits attributed to self-forgiveness.     

The Social Psychology of Groups and Group Psychotherapy: One View of the Next Century

Will fields that study groups in general, such as social psychology, and fields that use groups to achieve therapeutic goals, such as group psychotherapy, move toward unification in the future or will they drift apart? One possible future assumes that these two approaches to groups will become better integrated as (a) societal changes increase individuals' reliance on groups; (b) research and theory on group processes become more sophisticated; and (c) basic and applied researchers work together more closely in examining groups. Such unification requires, however, changes in the training, outlook, and procedures used by both practitioners and researchers.     

Some Legal Issues in Counselling and Psychotherapy

Although substantial legal difficulties can face anyone trying to recover compensation from counsellors for breach of their legal duties, such claims can in principle succeed. Counsellors ought to take particular care to provide a physically safe setting for the counselling session. Advice given to the client can lead to liability both to the client and to third parties who may be affected. The impact of the client's actions on third parties can justify, and less often compel, departures from confidentiality. The importance of keeping client records has to be balanced against legal obligations imposed on counsellors in various situations to make such records available for inspection by the client or third parties.     

社会建构论语境中的团体心理治疗

社会建构论团体心理治疗的目的是改变团体内不良的关系模式,建构新的意义。治疗的焦点是"意义",治疗师关注成员内心主观的意义建构,借助于话语的作用建构与重构"意义",其角色是参与者。治疗重视"关系"对意义的建构性和治疗作用,"关系"是治疗产生治疗效果的重要因子,"关系"的改变预示着意义的改变。     

Comprehensive Counselling: One Pupil's Integration

A case-study is used to show how an eclectic approach towards counselling can be helpful in the integration of a child with special educational needs into a mainstream secondary school. The value of a problem-solving model which focuses on personal agency and self-help skills is demonstrated. In particular, the effectiveness of goal setting, feedback and modelling to change perceptions, increase self-responsibility and change behaviour is emphasised. Limitations of the school context, particularly the attitudes of some staff, on the effectiveness of the approach are outlined. It is concluded that comprehensive counselling, whilst taking the needs of the majority as a starting point, is equally a means of enabling those with 'special' needs to achieve true integration.     

Empathy in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Present status and future directions

This paper considers the current status of the construct of empathy and the methodological difficulties experienced in researching empathy arising from the assumptions inherent in the ‘drug metaphor’. This paradigm assumes therapy to comprise active ingredients delivered by the therapist. Four areas of current concern are reviewed along a range from theory to appropriate research methodologies, and it is argued that the current demise of productive research is a function of both conceptual confusion and inappropriate research paradigms and methodological procedures. Accordingly, it is argued that empathy research requires conceptual clarity and comprehensiveness. A more collaborative research enterprise adopting the events paradigm in which a multidimensional approach to empathy is pursued in the context of additional components is recommended. The future of empathy in counselling and psychotherapy is reviewed according to the relation between theory and research in the area of the therapeutic bond, and between research and practice adopting the scientist-practitioner model.     

Transcultural Counselling and Psychotherapy in the 1990s

Transcultural counselling has its origins in practice rather than theory. There still remains a unified method to develop, and extensive epidemiological and clinical research to carry out, The growing body of work in the field of mental illness and racism, however, has encouraged clinical counsellors in the UK to describe, prescribe, develop and publish their work much more widely. Some recent developments are outlined against the background of political and social changes in Britain in the nineties. Implications for research, training and service delivery are examined.     

Evidence-Based Psychotherapy and Counselling in the UK: Critique and Alternatives

Developments in empirically supported therapy or evidence-based practice in the UK are outlined and critically examined. Perceived advantages and disadvantages are set out, with a commentary. It is asserted that the evidence-based ethos is seriously flawed and that psychotherapy is essentially a faith-based craft, not a thoroughly researchable scientific enterprise. Some alternatives to evidence-based practice are briefly outlined, before turning to an exploration of the wider context of anthropathology in which therapy takes place and against which it must acknowledge its limitations. Broad-brush conclusions are drawn.     

A Participant-Observer's Perspective on Psychotherapy Integration

Jacobson has raised a number of issues about the usefulness of psychotherapy integration. Some of his concerns stem from his doubt that people are capable of change, and some that appear to be the result of a misinterpretation of what constitutes psychotherapy integration. This article attempts to clarify some of these misunderstandings, which seem to be the result of equating psychotherapy integration with the integration of theories. Comments are also made about the research underpinings related to work in this area.     

Social Change and Marital Problems: Implications for Marriage Counselling

There are many reasons why people experience marital dissatisfaction. This paper is concerned with those who experience dissatisfaction not as a result of individual personality problems but as a result of the impact of social change on contemporary marriage. On the whole, these people are emotionally mature even if they present, initially, with 'clinical' symptoms. The paper identifies the effect of social change on such couples and suggests an approach to marriage counselling designed specifically to meet their needs. Background material is provided by a study of 40 couples seen for marriage counselling in a psychiatric clinic.     

The Relation of Psychotherapy Integration to the Established Systems of Psychotherapy

That individuals (and groups) have vested interests is part of the nature of the human condition and is captured in the cognitive theoretical concept “personal domain” (Beck, 1976, p. 56). Of relevance to psychotherapy integration (and consistent with this concept), there are some apparent philosophical differences between advocates of psychotherapy integration and those of the major systems of psychotherapy. In the same manner that the various schools of integrative and eclectic psychotherapy compete with one another (Lazarus & Messer, 1991, p. 144), so too do they contend with the established systems. In this article, we present several issues about which the systems of psychotherapy and the integration movement may differ, and we respond to criticisms of cognitive therapy that have been the focus of previous articles in this journal. Finally, we give examples of how those who research and apply the contemporary systems of psychotherapy can, within those systems, explore possibilities for psychotherapy integration. We conclude that there is probably much that the integration movement and the established systems of psychotherapy can offer each other.