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This thought-provoking series of papers challenges complacency towards ethical matters. In his Foreword, Lord Alderdice writes ‘Ethical practice means something more and quite different from not falling foul of the code of ethics and practice’ (p. vii). The ‘ethical attitude’, elaborated in the book, is what is ‘more’ and ‘quite different’.
Contributors from various theoretical backgrounds (weighted by Jungian, Analytical Psychologists) agree that an ethical attitude is embedded in analytic work. In their introduction, Mary Twyman and Hester McFarland Solomon describe the ethical attitude as the ‘structure and ballast’, sustaining the analytic attitude through the creative and destructive storms unleashed in the analytic process. Essential to the analytic attitude are an open and receptive mind, refraining from re-active or retaliatory responses, dedicated to finding meaning and value in the patient's communications. An ethical attitude and good analytic practice are two sides of one coin. Without the ethical attitude the analytic space collapses.
For Twyman the ethical attitude is captured in a form of unconditional responsibility. McFarland Solomon locates this responsibility in a developmental perspective, which translates into the analyst's ‘thoughtful devotedness’ towards the patient, their analytic relationship and work together. The ethical attitude seeks to recognize, discover and facilitate the development of the patient as an individual rather than as an extension of the analyst. This endeavour depends on the analyst's openness both to themselves and their patient and on their willingness to become subject to the analytic process. The analytic space has the potential to transform both parties to the relationship.