ABSTRACT
Ethical functioning cannot be separated from the context in which it occurs. The mental health professions’ attempts to legislate ethics rules and standards of care jeopardize the safety and well-being of the individual therapist and client, burdening their relationship with the strains and risks of the professions’ adaptation to managed care and other inherently unethical aspects of our overall social context. In such adaptations, the professions have created a split between institutional and individual ethics, holding the practitioner accountable for individual ethical behavior in a context of unethical institutional functioning. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is an exploration of therapist and client vulnerability in a professional context that is increasingly rule-based. It discusses in more detail the problems of legal supervision.
