LIVSFORSTÅELSE OG ETIK I PSYKOTERAPI

Abstract

Ethics deals with the way human beings behave to each other - or how to take responsibility for the the inevitable power one person has of his or her fellow beings. Formulating an ethic about psychotherapy implies a comprehension of the mutual relation between the psychotherapist and the client. You may describe it as a psychodynamic interaction between two persons or as a human mutual relationship taking place under specific conditions. These two different views imply separate rules for the mutual relationship - rules for the proper way of doing therapy and rules for ordinary
responsible behavior respectively. The underlying philosophical anthropology is different as well. In the first case it is based on an empirical ontology, in the second case on the hypothesis of certain fundamental human conditions of life involving mutual power and responsibility. The psychotherapeutic therapist-client relation include both dimensions, and this has consequenses for both psychotherapeutic practice and theory. Ethical psychotherapeutic practice must operate with a broad vision of life drawing on both aspects of the therapist-client relation. And from a theoretical point of view understanding the effect of psychotherapy implies a selfconception in psychotherapy which is broader than that afforded by an empirical scientific psychology, i.e. psychotherapy must define itself as concurrently being an
empirical and a humanistic activity.