ABSTRACT
This chapter is the outcome of a public dialogue at the 2005 World Transactional Analysis Conference in Edinburgh, between Bill Cornell and author. McGrath has demonstrated the application of ethical principles to determining appropriate boundaries concerning dual relationships, a perennial ethical challenge for all therapists. If professional ethics become too exclusively preoccupied with the boundaries between good and bad practice, there is a risk that they become irrelevant once a therapist is securely above that line. At first glance, the notion of a missing ethic may seem offensive to some, especially those who have invested considerable efforts in developing or learning existing ethics for psychotherapy. In addition, the implication that the psychotherapy profession is based on an incomplete ethic may seem profoundly troubling to others. The primary meaning of trust as a noun is “faith or confidence in the loyalty, strength, veracity etc., of a person or thing”.
