Client Harm and Professional Accountability

Abstract

This article describes a feminist model for defining and preventing professional misconduct which holds the therapist accountable for the nature and intent of the therapeutic relationship. The model is feminist because the idea of relationship is its principal object of concern. Indeed, the measuring stick in this model is the therapist's behavior in terms of the way it either diminishes or enhances the relational connection with the client rather than whether codes of ethics deem the behavior appropriate. To use this model, however, feminist family therapists have to challenge not only the traditional definition of systemic, or no-fault, neutrality that obscures the importance of accountability, but also those ideologies in feminist thinking that advocate eliminating or minimizing the power differential between therapist and client-ideologies that are at cross-purposes with the foundation of the relationship.