Irrational Ethics

Irrational Ethics

Curt and Katie chat about how current ethical standards fail to recognize culture and humanity. We talk about how the ethics codes were initially created, looking at the racist, sexist, classist roots. We also discuss the problems in how ethics are usually taught and the lack of focus on ethical thinking and decision-making, rather than rigidly following rules based in oppression.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

In this episode we talk about:

• The gaps in the ethics codes, looking at the historical roots of the current codes
• How ethics codes were initially created – racist, sexist, classist roots
• The systemic implications related to continuing to refine the codes, rather than re-norming or recreating starting with the current people in the profession
• Thoughts around fixing the codes to be more representative and inclusive
• The challenges that ethics committees face in considering a new ethics code
• The aspirational aspects of the “shared values”
• The problems with how we teach ethics in grad school
• “We were taught ethics as laws.”
• The need to think ethically, not blindly follow rules out of context
• The problem with rigidly holding to imperfect ethical codes
• Authoritarian practices of holding each other to ethics codes
• “We’re perpetuating oppression and disguising it as morality” – Curt Widhalm
• Principle ethics – bare-minimum guidelines to protect against the lowest common denominator
• Aspirational ethics – and why we should move in this direction
• The willing ignorance of other cultures within the ethical codes
• Our requirement to hold to white Eurocentric ideals
• What we can do to improve the codes
• Looking at ourselves as individuals and having guidance on how we can be better
• The failure of the codes to consider how therapists show up in the room
• The importance of having best practices for optimizing performance for therapists
• The problem with not clearly distinguishing between principle versus aspirational codes
• Posing the question on what an ethics code would look like when it isn’t tied to a professional association