ABSTRACT
Ethical standards are not fixed and unchanging, and I will argue that counselling is at a particularly crucial stage in the development of them. There are issues of identity which are fundamental to determining such standards. Unless the boundary of what is and, perhaps more importantly, what is not counselling is demarcated, the process of producing them is frustrated. It is much easier to develop clear and relevant ethical standards which are focused on the needs of clearly identifiable professions/groups. If the group is too wide ranging in its interests and ill focused, the ethical standards are forced to become little more than abstract and generalised statements of intent rather than concrete and specific requirements.
