BeeLeaf Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy

Cracking The Codes - What and How do Psychotherapists need to learn about Ethics?

Written by Pamela Gawler-Wright

First Published in "The Psychotherapist" March 2009

"A map is not the territory ... The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map...."

Alfred Korzybski

My time on the Ethics Committee of UKCP has alerted me to numerous longings, from individuals and organisations, to have some external authority of righteous wisdom, to preside over all difficult situations that we face in the arenas of practice, training and supervising.

Even better, to have such an authority neatly packaged into an all encompassing, written dictum, (preferably less than 1000 words long). Ethical choices could then become a process of simple reference, without doubt, regret, disagreement or reprisal - "It said in the code of ethics..."

To this outcome, any Ethics Committee will always disappoint.

Ethical practice is a dynamic, complex, swirl of events, set within a relationship that includes therapist, client and the wider social field.

This introduction uses the metaphors of map (cognitively constructed codes), territory (sensorily experienced practice) and cartography - map-making, or processes of mediation between these two ways of processing information in exploring what is best to do, and when, in ethical psychotherapy.

Talk with the Animals

Written by Pamela Gawler-Wright, Director of Training for BeeLeaf Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy

Presented at the NLP Conference in London 2008

A Message From Dibley

I am a 9 month old miniature Labradoodle, owned by BeeLeaf Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy which is a not-for-profit Social Enterprise and UKCP Accredited Training and Accrediting Organisation. I am training to become a Certified Therapy Animal Assistant and I also help the BeeLeaf Trainees to learn Neuro-Linguistic Psychotherapy. I am here today as part of my training. If I interfere in any way with your learning or comfort, please immediately inform one of my handlers, Pam or Mandy.

Please help keep me safe and able to learn better

A Representative Balance

Written by Pamela Gawler-Wright, Director of Training for BeeLeaf Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy

A Training MO shares its experience of creating a representatively diverse membership and explores how an active Equal Opportunities and Diversity policy grows from both conscious and unconscious dynamics.

As new kids amongst the neighbourhood of UKCP Training Organisations, BeeLeaf Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy has had an interesting and challenging couple of years. One example of how UKCP works well is having access to so many models of good practice and the generosity of the community to share literature and developed protocol. Due to this collective and diverse wealth, we have been inspired and empowered as an organisation to improve several aspects of how we do what we do in the preparation of effective and ethical psychotherapy practitioners.

Only Connect - A conversation with Dr Ernest L Rossi

Written by Pamela Gawler-Wright

Dr Ernest L Rossi provided the scientific basis and clinical method for not only much of the influence of NLP on health but also many of the more credible advances in complementary therapy during the 1990s. He is a walking treasury of first hand experiences, having studied directly with Fritz Perls, Franz Alexander and, most famously, Milton H. Erickson, whose papers he edited after Erickson's death. Pamela interviewed him at a workshop in the Lake District.

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Skills of Love