Some ethical concerns about counselling research

Abstract

The whole approach of counselling researchers to ethics may be assumed to have been improving in recent years, especially with the BACP research guidelines (Bond, 2004), with its focus on trustworthiness and on the researcher engaging with ethical issues. In this paper we share our concerns about the background to ethical decision making for researchers today followed by our specific concerns for counselling researchers namely: why do counselling research at all?; research that hurts participants; the impact of research on the therapeutic process; restrictive notions around what is data; the politics of funding and informed consent revisited.

Keywords:

• counselling research
• ethical issues

Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed to the development of our understanding of the ethics of counselling research. We especially wish to acknowledge the part played by: Tim Bond, Lynne Gabriel, John McLeod, Stephen Goss and members of the Doctorate in Counselling Studies group at the University of Manchester. Inclusion of someone's name on this list does not imply that they necessarily agree with us.

Declaration of interest : The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.