Ethical Issues in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice

Poornima Bhola, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. She has over 18 years of experience as a therapist and has previously worked in a consultation-liaison context at St. John’s Medical College & Hospital, Bangalore. Her keen interest in ethical questions is reflected in her involvement in teaching, training and research concerning the ethics of practice. She is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists and of the Institutional Ethics Committee at Karunashraya Trust. She is deeply interested in understanding and enhancing the professional training and development of psychotherapists and has also been involved in the International Study of the Development of Psychotherapists. In addition, her clinical and research interests include psychotherapy processes, youth mental health and suicidality, personality disorders, psychosocial rehabilitation and workplace mental health.  Ahalya Raguram, PhD, is Professor at the Department of Clinical Psychology and the former head of the department, NIMHANS, Bangalore, with over 25 years of experience. Her clinical, teaching and research interests reflect a long-standing and abiding interest in families and interpersonal relationships as well as individual, family and couple therapies. Her research work has focused on exploring the role of client and therapist factors in the outcome of therapies in addition to examining the efficacy of different approaches to intervention. She is the coordinator of the psychotherapy training programme in in the department. In addition, she has conducted numerous training programmes to impart basic counseling and therapeutic skills to various groups including counsellors from family counselling and rehabilitation centres, lay counsellors, nursing staff as well as school and college teachers. She was an expert member of theAdvisory Committee of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi for curriculum development of a course on family counselling. She has been a member of the Institutional Ethical Review Board at NIMHANS. 

Chapter 1. Navigating the ethical landscape: Critical issues in practice and training Poornima Bhola & Ahalya Raguram.- Chapter 2. The Ethical Private Practitioner Rathna Isaac.- Chapter 3. Ethics in child psychotherapy: A practitioner's perspective  Sowmya Bhaskaran & Shekhar P. Seshadri.- Chapter 4.Ethical issues in working with children in the consultation-liaison context Vijaya Raman.- Chapter 5. Classroom and Counsellor Ethics: A daily balancing act Neena David.- Chapter 6. Ethical issues in working with couples and families Sobhana H., Priya Saxena, & Buli Nag Daimari.- Chapter 7. Ethical issues in working with women in sex work facing intimate partner violence Sanghamitra Iyengar.- Chapter 8.  Working with survivors of sexual violence:Ethical issues and Dilemmas Anuradha Kapoor &Chandana Baksi.- Chapter 9. 'Coming out’ of the comfort zone: Challenging heteronormativity through affirmative counselling with lesbian and gay clients Ketki Ranade & Shruti Chakravarty.- Chapter 10. Employee Assistance Programmes: Emergent ethical issues Ellen Mrinalini Shinde.- Chapter 11.  Intersections between ethics and technology: Online client-therapist interactions Kakli Gupta, Ananya Sinha& Poornima Bhola.- Chapter 12. Ethics in therapeutic practice: Culturally universal and valid? R. Raguram.- Chapter 13.  Ethical and legal issues in Psychotherapy Vinay B., Lakshmi J.& Suresh Bada Math.- Chapter 14. Research ethics in psychotherapy and psychosocial interventions: Role of institutional ethical review boards Shoba Srinath & Poornima Bhola.