Handbook of Professional and
Ethical Practice for Psychologists,
Counsellors and Psychotherapists
Closer regulation of psychological counselling means that an awareness of the
professional, legal and ethical considerations is vital.
The Handbook of Professional and Ethical Practice brings together leading therapists
and psychologists who have a wealth of knowledge and experience of their subjects.
Each chapter places particular emphasis on the current codes of practice and ethical
principles underpinning safe ethical practice and the implications for practitioners.
Comprehensive coverage of the legal, clinical and ethical considerations involved in
research and training is provided and the reflective questions at the end of every chapter
serve to prompt further discussion of the issues. The following subjects are covered:
•
Professional Practice and Ethical Considerations
•
Legal Considerations and Responsibilities
•
Clinical Considerations and Responsibilities
•
Working with Diversity – Professional Practice and Ethical Considerations
•
Research, Supervision and Training
This innovative handbook provides a supportive guide to the major professional, legal
and ethical issues encountered by trainees on counselling, clinical psychology
and psychotherapy courses, as well as providing an invaluable resource for more
experienced therapists and other members of the helping professions.
Rachel Tribe is a Senior Lecturer, Chartered Psychologist and Course Director in the
School of Psychology at the University of East London.
Jean Morrissey is a Registered Counsellor (BACP) and a lecturer at the School of
Nursing & Midwifery Studies, Trinity College Dublin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Handbook of professional and ethical practice for psychologists,
counsellors, and psychotherapists / edited by Rachel Tribe and
Jean Morrissey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–58391–968–6 (hbk.)—ISBN 1–58391–969–4 (pbk.)
1. Psychologists – Professional ethics. 2. Counsellors –
Professional ethics. 3. Psychotherapists – Professional ethics.
I. Tribe, Rachel. II. Morrissey, Jean. III. Title.
BF76.4.H365 2004
174′.915 – dc22 2004007118
ISBN 1–58391–968–6 (hbk)
ISBN 1–58391–969–4 (pbk)
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
ISBN 0-203-32362-9 Master e-book ISBN
Rachel Tribe would like to dedicate this book to the memory of Richard
Brian Kenyon. To quote his son Kieron, ‘He did so much for so many and
never wanted reward or recognition.’ He was a very special person and we
miss him very much.
Jean Morrissey would like to dedicate this book to Mary and Patrick
Morrissey and Colin Brett: thank you all for everything.
Contents
List of tables and figures x
Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xvii
PART I

NICOLA BARDEN
13 Suicide: professional and ethical considerations 159
JANE BODEN
14 Working in a healthcare setting: professional and ethical challenges 171
AMANDA EVANS AND ROBERT BOR
PART IV
Working with diversity – professional practice and
ethical considerations 183
15 Professional and ethical considerations when working with children
and adolescents – an educational psychology perspective 185
IRVINE S. GERSCH AND GRÁINNE NÍ DHOMHNAILL
16 Professional and ethical issues when working with older adults 197
ELEANOR O’LEARY AND NICOLA BARRY
viii Contents
17 Professional and ethical practice in the consulting room with
lesbians and gay men 209
LYNDSEY MOON
18 Professional and ethical issues when working with learning disabled
clients 221
PETER FORSTER AND RACHEL TRIBE
19 Professional and ethical practice in multicultural and
multiethnic society 233
JOHN NEWLAND AND NIMISHA PATEL
PART V
Research, supervision and training 247
20 Research in therapeutic practice settings: ethical considerations 249
ADRIAN COYLE AND CAMILLA OLSEN
21 The ethics (or not) of evidence-based practice 263
MARTIN MILTON
22 Mandatory personal therapy for therapists: professional and

Editors
Rachel Tribe is a Chartered Counselling and Organisational Psychologist,
currently employed as Course Director on the Counselling Psychology
course at the University of East London. She has published widely and
regularly contributes to national and international conferences. She has
worked in the UK and a number of other countries.
Jean Morrissey is a Registered Counsellor (BACP) and a lecturer at the School
of Nursing & Midwifery Studies, Trinity College Dublin (formally an
associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong). She
originally trained and worked as a general and psychiatric nurse before
becoming a counsellor and supervisor. She has worked as a counsellor
and supervisor in voluntary, educational and hospital settings in the UK,
Ireland and Hong Kong. She has published on issues relating to training
supervision.
Authors
Nicola Barden is currently Head of Counselling at the University of
Portsmouth. A registrant of both UKCP and BACP, she is Deputy Chair
of BACP and chairs its Professional Standards Committee. She was
Editor of the CPJ from 2000 to 2002. Previous publications include ‘The
responsibilities of the supervisor in BACP’s codes of ethics and practice’
in Wheeler and King, The Responsibility of the Supervisor (Sage 2000),
and Rethinking Gender and Therapy (Open University Press 2001),
co-edited with Susannah Izzard.
Nicola Barry MA is a Registered Psychologist and College Lecturer in the
Department of Applied Psychology, University College Cork. She is the
Assistant Course Director of the Higher Diploma in Guidance and Coun-
selling and co-author of articles in the area of Gestalt reminiscence
therapy.
Jane Boden is an Accredited Counsellor with the BACP working within both
public and private sectors. She is also the principal infertility counsellor for

Doctorate in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychology in the
Department of Psychology, University of Surrey. His research interests
include lesbian and gay psychology, identity, spirituality/religion,
bereavement and qualitative research approaches. To date, he has
(co-)written 35 journal articles and 16 book chapters and co-edited
Lesbian and Gay Psychology: New Perspectives (BPS Blackwell, 2002).
Malcolm Cross is Director of Counselling Psychology Programmes, City
University, London. He is also a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist and
Chartered Counselling Psychologist. An active practitioner and researcher
xii Contributors
with numerous academic articles, book chapters and books to his name.
His most recent book is Reporting in Counselling and Psychotherapy: A
trainee’s Guide to Preparing Case Studies and Reports, prepared in
collaboration with Papadopoulos and Bor.
Emmy van Deurzen directs the New School of Psychotherapy and Counsel-
ling in London, where she is a Professor in Psychotherapy with Schiller
International University. She is also Co-Director, of the Centre for the
Study of Conflict and Reconciliation at the University of Sheffield. She
has written extensively on the application of philosophical ideas to psy-
chotherapy and runs a private practice. She founded the Society for
Existential Analysis and created numerous courses in psychotherapy
for academic institutions. She is a fellow of the BACP and BPS and
has also been external relations officer to the European Association for
Psychotherapy.
Gráinne Ní Dhomhnaill is employed as a Lecturer in Psychology in the Educa-
tion Department, University College Dublin. Her work involves training
educational psychologists as well as the initial and continuing professional
development of teachers. She has served as President of the Psychological
Society of Ireland, and is a former Course Director of the professional
training programme for educational psychologists. Gráinne has presented

Andrew Grimmer is an accredited BACP Counsellor and a full member of the
New Zealand Association of Counsellors. He works as a counsellor in a
tertiary education counselling service and in private practice. He has a
particular interest in mandatory personal therapy and has carried out
research on the subject with counselling psychologists. He currently lives
in Auckland, New Zealand.
Rebecca Haworth, Chartered Clinical Psychologist, has experience of work-
ing in a private consultancy – specialising in child and adult mental
Health, including an expert witness service. She has also worked in a range
of NHS settings for over 10 years, and has particular interest working with
adults, families and children in primary care settings. She has undertaken a
range of additional training in brief solution-focused therapy with indi-
viduals and families, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and group work. She
has published several journal papers.
Peter Jenkins is a Lecturer in Counselling at the University of Manchester
and a member of the Professional Conduct Committee of the British
Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. He is the author of Coun-
selling, Psychotherapy and the Law (Sage 1997), co-author with Debbie
Daniels of Therapy with Children (Sage 2000), and editor of Legal Issues in
Counselling and Psychotherapy (Sage 2002).
Martin Milton UKCP Reg is Course Director (Practice) of the University of
Surrey Practitioner Doctorate in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling
Psychology. He is also Consultant Counselling Psychologist and Regis-
tered Psychotherapist with North East London Mental Health Trust. His
research and specialist interests include lesbian and gay affirmative
psychology and psychotherapy, HIV-related psychotherapy and existential
psychotherapy. He has previously served on the committee of the BPS
Lesbian and Gay Psychology section and was one of the co-editors of
its Newsletter. He is currently one of the Division of Counselling Psy-
chology’s representatives to the Admissions Committee of the BPS and

apist with a psychosis relapse prevention study carried out by Professor
Garety and Professor Kuipers at the Institute of Psychiatry at Maudsley
Hospital. She is a Visiting Lecturer at City University, teaching students
on a certificate course in counselling psychology and at Surrey University
teaching students on PsychD in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling
Psychology.
Nimisha Patel is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of
East London, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, and Head of Clinical
Psychology at the Medical Foundation caring for victims of torture. She
also worked for many years in the NHS as a practitioner/clinician and
researcher and in developing clinical practice and services for a multi-
ethnic population. She has published widely on issues of working with
difference and discrimination in psychological health services.
David Purves is a Principal Lecturer in Counselling Psychology at London
Metropolitan University. He gained his doctorate from Oxford University
Contributors xv
in 1994. Since that time he has become both a Chartered Counselling
Psychologist and Psychotherapist. Dr Purves has a long-held interest in
ethics and teaches a popular course on this topic. He also has both
research and practice interests in the field of posttraumatic stress disorder
and maintains an NHS practice in this field. He has published and spoken
both nationally and internationally on this subject.
Digby Tantam is Clinical Professor of Psychotherapy at the University of
Sheffield. He is a practising psychotherapist, psychiatrist and psychologist.
He is Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Conflict and Reconcili-
ation at the University of Sheffield, and a partner in Dilemma Consultancy
in Human Relations. He served as Registrar of the European Association
of Psychotherapy (1999–2001) and Chair of the UKCP (1995–98). He has
published extensively; his most recent book is Psychotherapy and Counsel-
ling in Practice. A narrative approach (Cambridge University Press 2002).

Finally, we want to thank email, which enabled us to communicate across
continents and time zones with such great speed and success; without it this
book may not have been completed.

Professional practice and
ethical considerations
Part I

Introduction
Rachel Tribe and Jean Morrissey
There is no doubt that professional and ethical practice is a potent and
dynamic area. Changes in research and practice, legislation, and professional
and ethical guidelines may all mean incremental and paradigm shifts. In
addition, changing professional codes of practice, culture, and personal
belief systems, as well as the demands of clinical governance, lifelong learn-
ing and the likelihood of statutory registration, will also impact upon profes-
sional and ethical practice. Accordingly, we believe that the challenges in this
area of practice are among the things that make it an interesting and vibrant
one. The juxtaposition of the personal and professional is central to profes-
sional and ethical practice and is written about in this book by a number of
authors. Our aim in producing this book was to make it as comprehensive as
possible; inevitably constraints of space (and therefore price) meant that we
had to omit areas we might ideally have liked to include. Therefore, we
decided to include the areas which, we believe, are of most importance both
to trainee therapists, psychologists, and counsellors, and to experienced prac-
titioners. An issue within this area which we believe is vital but did not war-
rant an entire chapter in this book is the necessity of practitioners taking
responsibility for their own continuing professional development (CPD).
While different professional bodies have slightly different views and condi-
tions about this, the recognition of continuing professional development

more positive working environments. The final chapter in this section dis-
cusses the ‘person’ in ethical decision making and the varying degrees of
discomfort that can arise between ethical principles and personal values as
well as its impact on the therapeutic work. The first two chapters in Part II,
‘Legal considerations and responsibilities’, provide a comprehensive over-
view of the professional responsibilities as they relate to the legal context of
therapy. The following chapters focus on specific professional and legal con-
siderations and responsibilities of record keeping, writing a report for use in
court reports and appearing as an expert witness. Part III, ‘Clinical con-
siderations and responsibilities’, covers specific areas and the accompanying
professional and ethical challenges that apply to the practice of therapy,
including managing referrals and complaints, fitness to practise, suicide risk
and working in a multidisciplinary team in a healthcare setting. The pen-
ultimate part, ‘Working with difference – professional practice and ethical
considerations’, focuses on issues of working with diversity, including age,
sexual orientation, disability and race, and the importance of such issues in
the consulting room. The final part, ‘Research, supervision and training’,
highlights the importance of research and the challenges of undertaking
research in clinical practice. Current debates surrounding evidence-based
practice are also discussed. This is followed by an examination of personal
therapy, the teaching of ethics and professional practice and clinical super-
vision as key components in the process of becoming a psychologist, coun-
sellor or psychotherapist. The final chapter presents trainees’ perspectives
of professional and ethical issues based on their experiences in clinical
practice.
4 Professional practice and ethical considerations
Finally, as editors we hope the reflective questions at the end of each
chapter will act as a springboard for ongoing discussion, reflection and
learning concerning the many complex and challenging professional and eth-
ical issues each therapist is confronted with in an ever-changing therapeutic