ABSTRACT
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) Ethical Framework (2002) was written to enable practitioners to develop appropriate moral and ethical qualities and not to be reliant on a set of rules of behaviour. The framework was written specifically to move away from the approach of the previous codes of ethics which had developed as very prescriptive sets of rules of what therapists should do or not do. In my experience as a supervisor and trainer, I find that many therapists are still looking for the rules they should abide by and as a consequence may be struggling with developing confidence in the Ethical Framework. In this chapter I want to reformulate the view that the ethical principles enshrined in the BACP Ethical Framework (2002) cannot be effective if they are treated as a set of rules of behaviour which are switched on when the therapist sits down with a client in the counselling relationship. It is my view that each of us as therapists needs to hold ethical values and principles as an integrated aspect of our self-construct. I wish to suggest that for each of us our ethical values and principles should form part of our way of being that informs how we are and what we do in all aspects of our lives. I will then explore an example of an ethical conflict I have been faced with in my work as a person-centred supervisor.
