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This book builds on recent writing about ethical issues in clinical work. It provides space for thirteen analysts to express their thoughts about the ethical attitude that is at the core of sound analytic practice. The editors state in the Introduction that ‘the ethical attitude is an analytic attitude and that good analytic practice is always ethical in nature’ (p. 11). It is this, says Hester Solomon, that forms a bridge between psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. Philip Hewitt further emphasizes the interdependence of ethics and the analytic process, and the tension that arises from feelings of togetherness and otherness—the struggle between the humanity of the analyst and that of the patient.
The ethical dimension of clinical practice is expressed institutionally in Codes of Ethics, but as Lord Alderdice states in the Foreword, adherence to a Code of Ethics needs to be accompanied by a personal ethical attitude in clinicians. While institutions are developing their Codes of Ethics, ethics in practice and the ethical stance of individual clinicians are less often examined, and ethics have not always been included as a subject in the curriculum of analytic trainings. Fiona Palmer Barnes points to the gap often existing between an institution's ethos and its Code of Ethics, and makes a plea for institutions to engage in a creative thinking process about their ethos and its interrelationship with their practitioners’ values and ethical principles. Consideration of ethical thinking in relation to attitudes towards race, gender and sexual orientation is touched upon.
Power and the protection of patients from its misuse is a theme throughout the book. Mary Twyman uses two writers on ethical principles to bring into focus the importance of understanding the asymmetry of the analytic relationship, with the analyst's responsibility to use their work ego in the service of the patient.
The impact of changes in ethical thinking on the therapeutic alliance is addressed by