Using Scaling to Facilitate Ethical Decision-Making in Family Therapy

ABSTRACT

Ethical decision-making in family therapy is inherently complex, as it requires therapists to balance competing needs of multiple individuals and subsystems. Scaling offers a potential means of helping facilitate such decision-making, by encouraging attendance to the likely impact of various courses of action on individuals and subsystems as related to each of the core ethical principles underlying psychotherapeutic practice. This article explores the potential use of scaling in family therapists’ ethical decision-making through case examples. Benefits and risks of such an approach are reviewed.

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