Client-Centred Practice: Ethical Obligation or Professional Obfuscation?

Abstract

Occupational therapists claim to practise in a client-centred and needs-led manner, yet disabled people can perceive occupational therapists to be accountable not to their clients but to their employers. This opinion piece argues that the profession has failed to address the ethical implications of being gatekeepers to the resources that clients need while professing to be ‘needs-led’; and contends that we must choose either client-centred or therapist-centred practice (in which occupational therapists protect their own interests). Because therapist-centred practice contravenes the existing Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, either appropriate censure or a rewriting of the Code is required.