ABSTRACT
The ethical dimensions of helping relationships are receiving increasing focus in the social and healthcare professions, not least because of the continuing rise in complaints against therapists and increasing interest in the nature of the client-practitioner relationship. Within the counselling and psychotherapy field, there is a recognition (both implicit and research-based) that the ethics of this relationship are of paramount importance to successful processes and outcomes. The quality of the client-practitioner encounter and practitioners’ ways of being in the lived reality of the therapeutic relationship is difficult to access. Hence this text, which invites experienced practitioners from diverse theoretical and practice positions to share their thoughts on and experiences of forming relational ethics in various relationship types and contexts.
