The Ethical Attitude in Analytic Practice

For analysts and therapists working in intimate clinical settings, ethics is at the foundation of professional life. Yet the various depth-psychological models have yet to provide an understanding of the relationship between professional ethics in the clinical setting and the origins and developments of the ethical attitude in the individual. This timely new work brings together practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapists and Jungian analysts to explore the impact of the ethical dimension on contemporary analytic theory and practice. Among the issues discussed are the ethical implications for the analyst contemplating and negotiating the stages of retirement; the pressures in the analytic relationship that may contribute to unethical enactments; the ethics involved in the sensitive area of publication and the dissemination of clinical material; and the ethical requirements for analysts working in the wider contexts of society, including mental health provision. In a climate in which analytic and therapeutic practice is highly scrutinized by the public and the media, this book makes an important contribution to the place of ethics in analytic theory building and day-to-day clinical practice, and in the psychoanalytic understanding of wider social and cultural ethical issues.