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This is an interesting and sensible book by the Chair of the Ethics Committee of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). It was written to air, both for the professional and the patient, issues that may become increasingly pressing as people become freer to complain and to express their grievances. It addresses these issues as they relate to psychotherapy practice within the United Kingdom.
It may, however, have more academic than practical interest for the child psychotherapist. While the Association of Child Psychotherapists is mentioned as the only psychotherapeutic body to have received recognition from the Department of Health, the quite considerable differences in the ethical position of those who work with children are not even mentioned. Such issues importantly include the confidentiality of the child's material in relation to the parents, differences in the contract (with whom is this made?) and the highly complicated questions of suspicions of abuse that may arise in work with children.
The title of the book is, perhaps, misleading from this point of view and specificity to its work with adults would clarify its brief. Even more importantly, the title suggests that the book is about psychotherapy and those whose criteria would meet the criteria of the UKCP or the BCP (the British Confederation of Psychotherapists.) However, there are frequent references to counsellors and counselling, and in the appendices which detail the ethical codes of the UKCP and BCP there is the inclusion of the equivalent data from the British Association of Counselling (BAC). The author does not explain this inclusion of counselling or significant similarities or differences between counselling and psychotherapy. If the book is to include the quite wide counselling field, the title should have made this clear.
It is noticeable that some of the interesting examples refer specifically to those involved in counselling. Perhaps this is not surprising in view of ‘the current