ABSTRACT
Institutional therapy's codes of ethics, typically make a big issue of client confidentiality; yet there is a great danger in this of both reflecting and actively creating an obsession with the private, asocial self of late modernity. Perhaps the most seemingly invulnerable ethic of profession centred therapeutic practice is that of client confidentiality, a conventional wisdom. There is also a growing literature in the field of postmodern ethics, which constitutes an important starting-point for anyone seeking a viable and coherent post-professional approach to ethics in therapy. Professionalization is a human process, a feeling that comes over a person when he behaves in concert with his own conscience". Therapists should be subject to strict external control of their activities simply appealing to the personal characteristics of the therapist is not enough. The issue of "safety" leads quite naturally into a consideration of the question of abuse in therapy.
