Developing the Ethical Chóros

Abstract

Abstract Existing training in ethics mostly approximates the ‘ethical floor’ approach with, at one end, a focus on minimal obligations and, at the other end, a near-exclusive focus on the more egregious violations. This leaves a relative void in-between. This approach to teaching ethics is not adequate for our purposes. Instead this chapter argues the case for the allocation of space during training for consideration of the more everyday errors, ethical dilemmas, and breaches. This chapter focuses on ‘how’ we could teach ethics to increase protection for patients and ensure that teaching ethics does not become token. It is all too easy to dilute the real demand that the call to ethics places on the therapist. Rules and codes of ethics cannot protect the patient against the operation of the therapist’s unconscious. A detailed curriculum is set out with specified readings. It is suggested that the quality of a training is largely determined by what candidates are encouraged to question in themselves, in the analytic method, and in their institutions.