Abstract
Ethical principles of psychology, as exemplified in the American Psychological Association (APA) Code of Ethics (2002), provide impractical advice for addressing client values during psychotherapy. These principles seem to argue that each client’s values should be respected and protected at all times, except in cases in which this would result in harm to the client or the general public. Although the code is appropriately designed as a defense against potential and actual abuses of professional power, this general proscription against directly targeting client values for change is based on an understanding of values that grants them special ontological status and has resulted in limited clinical interventions focusing solely on “values clarification.” With its strong foundation in a unified philosophical system, clinical behavior analysis offers a sophisticated alternative approach to values that both defines what they are and identifies when they can be ethically targeted to improve the lives of clients.
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Portions of this paper were previously presented at the 32nd annual conference of the Association of Behavior Analysis International, Atlanta, May 2006.
We thank all individuals with whom we discussed the material contained in this paper, most important of whom are members of our lab: Sabrina Darrow, Claudia Drossel, and Tom Waltz.
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Bonow, J.T., Follette, W.C. Beyond values clarification: Addressing client values in clinical behavior analysis. BEHAV ANALYST 32, 69–84 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392176
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392176