The goal of this book is to shed psychoanalytic light on a concept—informed consent—that has transformed the delivery of health care in the United States. Examining the concept of informed consent in the context of psychoanalysis, the book first summarizes the law and literature on this topic. Is informed consent required as a matter of positive law? Apart from statutes and cases, what do the professional organizations say about this? Second, the book looks at informed consent as a theoretical matter. It addresses such questions as: What would be the elements of a robust informed consent in psychoanalysis? Is informed consent even possible here? Can patients really understand, say, transference or regression before they experience them, and is it too late once they have? Is informed consent therapeutic or countertherapeutic? Can a “process view” of informed consent make sense here? Third, the book reviews data on the topic. A lengthy questionnaire answered by sixty-two analysts reveals their practices in this regard. Do they obtain a statement of informed consent from their patients? What do they disclose? Why do they disclose it? Do they think it is possible to obtain informed consent in psychoanalysis at all? Do they think the practice is therapeutic or countertherapeutic, and in what ways? Do they think there should or should not be an informed consent requirement for psychoanalysis? The book should appeal above all to therapists interested in the ethical dimensions of their practice.

The distinguished contributors to Confidentiality probe the ethical, legal, and clinical implications of a deceptively simple proposition: Psychoanalytic treatment requires a confidential relationship between analyst and analysand. But how, they ask, should we understand confidentiality in a psychoanalytically meaningful way? Is confidentiality a therapeutic requisite of psychoanalysis, an ethical precept independent of psychoanalytic principles, or simply a legal accommodation with the powers that be? In wrestling with these questions, the contributors to Confidentiality are responding to a professional, ethical, and political crisis in the field of mental health. Psychotherapy - especially long-term psychotherapy in its psychoanalytic variants - has been undermined by an erosion of personal privacy that has become part of our cultural zeitgeist. The heightened demand for public transparency has forced caregivers from all walks of professional life to submit to increasing bureaucratic regulation. For the contributors to this collection, the need for confidentiality is centrally involved in the relationship of the psychotherapeutic professions both to society and to the law. No less importantly, the requirement of confidentiality brings a clarifying perspective to debates within the psychotherapeutic literature about the relationship of theory to practice. It thereby provides a framework for shaping a set of ethical principles specifically adapted to the psychotherapeutic, and especially to the psychoanalytic, relationship. Linking general issues of privacy to the intimate details of psychotherapeutic encounter, Confidentiality will serve as a basic guide to a wide range of professionals, including lawyers, social scientists, philosophers, and, of course, psychotherapists. Therapy patients, policy makers, and the wider public will also find it instructive to know more about the special protected conditions under which one can better come to "know thyself."

Based on 92 interviews with clients and with therapists who consider themselves specialists in treating eating disorders, working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, or treating sex offenders, this study explores how therapists cope with the demands to negotiate consent with their clients and how clients perceive this process. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Winner of the 2010 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Scholarship! This book builds a key clinical bridge between attachment theory and psychoanalysis, deploying Holmes' unique capacity to weld empirical evidence, psychoanalytic theory and consulting room experience into a coherent and convincing whole. Starting from the theory–practice gap in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the book demonstrates how attachment theory can help practitioners better understand what they intuitively do in the consulting room, how this benefits clients, and informs evidence-based practice. Divided into two sections, theory and practice, Exploring in Security discusses the concept of mentalising and considers three components of effective therapy – the therapeutic relationship, meaning making and change promotion – from both attachment and psychoanalytic perspectives. The second part of the book applies attachment theory to a number of clinical situations including: working with borderline clients suicide and deliberate self-harm sex and sexuality dreams ending therapy. Throughout the book theoretical discussion is vividly illustrated with clinical material, personal experience and examples from literature and film, making this an accessible yet authoritative text for psychotherapy practitioners at all levels, including psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, mental health nurses and counsellors.

Addressing the issue of professional ethics in the field of psychotherapy, this volume uses classical vignettes and discussions to examine the complexities faced by a therapeutic clinician in dealing with patients. Either hypothetical, generic, or composite situations, the examples are designed to help clinicians better recognize and respond to the ethical issues they will likely encounter in the field.

Psychotherapy is an indispensable approach in the treatment of mental disorders and, for some mental disorders, it is the most effective treatment. Yet, psychotherapy is abound with ethical issues. In psychotherapy ethics, numerous fundamental ethical issues converge, including self-determination/autonomy, decision-making capacity and freedom of choice, coercion and constraint, medical paternalism, the fine line between healthiness and illness, insight into illness and need of therapy, dignity, under- and overtreatment, and much more. The Oxford Handbook of Psychotherapy Ethics explores a whole range of ethical issues in the heterogenous field of psychotherapy thereby closing a widespread perceived gap between ethical sensitivity, technical language, and knowledge among psychotherapists. The book is intended not only for a clinical audience, but also for a philosophical/ethical audience - linking the two disciplines by fostering a productive dialogue between them, thereby enriching both the psychotherapeutic encounter and the ethical analysis and sensitivity in and outside the clinic. An essential book for psychotherapists in clinical practice, it will also be valuable for those professionals providing mental health services beyond psychology and medicine, including counsellors, social workers, nurses, and ministers.