On becoming non-judgmental: Some difficulties for an ethics of counselling

Journal of Medical Ethics

Volumn 25, Issue 6, 1999, Pages 487-490

  Johnston, Martin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL LANCASHIRE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Counselling; Ethics; Judgment; Non judgmental; Unconditional positive regard

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; DECISION MAKING; MEDICAL ETHICS; PATIENT COUNSELING;

EID: 0033452779     PISSN: 03066800     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1136/jme.25.6.487     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. The British Association for Counselling reported a membership in 1977 of 600 members but by 1995 this had reached a figure of around 13,000. Feltham C. What is counselling?: the promise and problem of the talking therapies. London: Sage, 1995: 69.
2. See for example: British Association for Counselling. Annual Report 1994/95. Warwick: British Association for Counselling, 1995.
3. See for example Eysenck HJ. The outcome problem in psychotherapy. In: Dryden W, Feltham C, eds. Psychotherapy and its discontents. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992.
4. Rogers C. On becoming a person: A therapist's view of psychotherapy. London: Constable, 1989.
5. See reference 4:123-4.
6. Almond B. Counselling for tolerance. Journal of Applied Philosophy 1997;14:19-30.
7. See reference 6:19.
8. See Gibbard A. Wise choices, apt feelings; a theory of normative judgment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. The basic idea here is that whilst we can identify norms which determine particular courses of action in particular circumstances, we can also identify higher order systems of norms which govern the acceptance of particular norms. This allows us to incorporate the notion of consistency into our discussions of which norms to accept. In terms of the present discussion it is my contention that Rogers's process view of personhood is a higher order system of norms which gives rise to the more particular norms of being non-judgmental and demonstrating unconditional positive regard.
9. Jopling D. Philosophical counselling, truth and self-interpretation. Journal of Applied Philosophy 1996;13:297-310.
10. A particularly useful account of this notion of objectivity can be found in Putnam H. Realism with a human face. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992.