- Differentiation of self
- Bowen's concept of separating thinking from feeling and keeping a clear sense of self while staying emotionally connected to the family; the opposite of fusion.
- Systemic therapy
- An approach treating problems as products of relationships and context, taking the relational system — couple, family, network — not the individual, as the unit of treatment.
- Circular causality
- The systemic idea that behavior is reciprocal and mutually influencing (A↔B↔A), rather than one-way (linear) cause and effect.
- First-order change
- Change within the system's existing rules — adjusting behavior while the underlying pattern stays the same ('more of the same').
- Second-order change
- Change of the system's rules and structure themselves, transforming the pattern that maintained the problem; the basis of lasting systemic change.
- Homeostasis
- A family system's tendency to maintain its stability and resist change; symptoms can serve to keep the system in its familiar balance.
- Negative feedback loop
- Information a system uses to dampen change and restore stability; it maintains the status quo (including a symptom).
- Positive feedback loop
- Information that amplifies change in a system; it can escalate conflict — or drive growth.
- Equifinality
- The systemic principle that the same end state can be reached from different starting points and by different paths.
- Triangle (Bowen)
- The three-person relationship a two-person system forms under anxiety by pulling in a third party to stabilize tension.
- Triangulation
- Drawing a third person into a two-person conflict to reduce tension, often locking in dysfunctional patterns.
- Emotional cutoff
- Managing unresolved family attachment by reducing or severing emotional contact; a sign of low differentiation (Bowen).
- Multigenerational transmission process
- Bowen's concept that levels of differentiation and relational patterns are passed down across generations.
- Family projection process
- Bowen's process by which parents transmit their emotional immaturity and anxiety onto one or more children.
- Nuclear family emotional process
- Bowen's patterns of emotional functioning in a single generation: marital conflict, dysfunction in a spouse, impairment of a child, or emotional distance.
- Murray Bowen
- Founder of Bowen family systems theory: differentiation of self, triangles, emotional cutoff, genograms, multigenerational transmission.
- Salvador Minuchin
- Founder of structural family therapy: subsystems, boundaries, hierarchy; techniques of joining, enactment, boundary making, and unbalancing.
- Structural family therapy
- Minuchin's model focused on reorganizing the family's structure — its subsystems, boundaries, and hierarchy.
- Subsystem
- A smaller unit within a family (e.g., spousal, parental, sibling) defined by generation, role, or function.
- Boundary (structural)
- The implicit rules defining who participates in a subsystem and how; boundaries range from rigid to clear to diffuse.
- Enmeshment
- A family pattern of diffuse boundaries and over-involvement, with poor differentiation and members speaking for one another.
- Disengagement
- A family pattern of rigid boundaries and emotional distance, with isolated members and low support.
- Hierarchy
- The organization of power and authority in a family; effective structure usually requires the parental subsystem to be in charge.
- Joining
- The structural-therapy process of accommodating to and connecting with a family to build the alliance needed to intervene.
- Enactment
- A structural technique in which the therapist has family members interact in session to reveal and then restructure their patterns.
- Boundary making
- A structural technique that strengthens or loosens boundaries between subsystems to correct enmeshment or disengagement.
- Unbalancing
- A structural technique in which the therapist temporarily sides with one member to shift the family's power balance.
- Jay Haley
- Co-founder of strategic family therapy: problem-focused, brief, using directives and paradoxical interventions.
- Cloé Madanes
- Co-developer of strategic family therapy, known for emphasizing hierarchy, love, and the protective function of symptoms.
- Strategic family therapy
- A brief, problem-focused model (Haley, Madanes; MRI) that interrupts the 'attempted solution' maintaining the problem, often via directives.
- Directive
- A strategic instruction telling clients to do something (in or out of session) designed to interrupt the problem pattern.
- Paradoxical intervention
- A strategic/Milan technique that prescribes the symptom — directing the client to continue or exaggerate it — to interrupt the pattern.
- Symptom prescription
- A paradoxical directive instructing the client to deliberately perform the symptom, removing the struggle against it.
- MRI (Mental Research Institute)
- The Palo Alto group (Watzlawick, Weakland, Fisch) that developed brief, problem-focused strategic therapy; 'the attempted solution is the problem.'
- Milan systemic therapy
- Selvini Palazzoli's model using hypothesizing, circular questioning, neutrality, and positive connotation.
- Circular questioning
- A Milan interviewing method asking about differences and relationships (e.g., 'who worries most?') to surface interactional patterns.
- Positive connotation
- A Milan technique ascribing a positive, system-serving intention to symptomatic behavior to reduce resistance.
- Neutrality (Milan)
- The Milan stance of remaining allied with the whole system rather than any one member or outcome.
- Virginia Satir
- Founder of the experiential/communications (human validation) model: communication stances, self-esteem, and family sculpting.
- Satir's communication stances
- Five stress responses: placater, blamer, super-reasonable (computer), irrelevant (distractor), and congruent (the healthy goal).
- Placater
- A Satir communication stance of appeasing and self-blaming to avoid conflict.
- Blamer
- A Satir communication stance of fault-finding and dominating to avoid feeling powerless.
- Congruent communication
- Satir's healthy stance in which words, feelings, and body match; the therapeutic goal.
- Family sculpting
- An experiential technique (Satir) in which members physically arrange themselves to represent relationships and emotional distance.
- Carl Whitaker
- Founder of symbolic-experiential family therapy, using the therapist's spontaneity, the absurd, and 'craziness' to provoke growth.
- Steve de Shazer
- Co-founder of solution-focused brief therapy; developed the miracle question and exception/scaling questions.
- Insoo Kim Berg
- Co-founder of solution-focused brief therapy, known for client-centered, solution-building interviewing.
- Solution-focused brief therapy
- A postmodern, brief model (de Shazer & Berg) that builds solutions rather than analyzing problems.
- Miracle question
- A solution-focused question asking the client to describe how life would differ if a miracle solved the problem overnight.
- Exception question
- A solution-focused question exploring times the problem was absent or less severe, to find existing strengths and solutions.
- Scaling question
- A solution-focused question asking the client to rate something (e.g., progress) on a 0–10 scale to make change measurable.
- Michael White
- Co-founder of narrative therapy (with David Epston): externalizing, unique outcomes, and re-authoring.
- David Epston
- Co-founder of narrative therapy, known for therapeutic letters and externalizing the problem.
- Narrative therapy
- A postmodern model (White & Epston) that separates the person from the problem and helps re-author the client's story.
- Externalizing
- A narrative technique that separates the person from the problem ('the person is not the problem'), reducing shame and restoring agency.
- Unique outcome
- In narrative therapy, a moment when the problem did not dominate, used as a foothold to re-author the person's story.
- Re-authoring
- The narrative process of building a new, preferred story of the client's life and identity.
- Sue Johnson
- Developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), an attachment-based model for couples.
- Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Sue Johnson's attachment-based couples model that de-escalates the negative interaction cycle and restructures the bond.
- Attachment
- The emotional bond between people; insecure attachment drives the negative interaction cycle in EFT.
- The Gottman Method
- John & Julie Gottman's research-based couples approach emphasizing friendship, conflict management, and shared meaning.
- Four Horsemen (Gottman)
- Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling — communication patterns predicting relationship breakdown.
- Reframing
- Offering a new, often more relational or positive meaning for a behavior to open the door to change.
- Identified patient (IP)
- The family member who carries or expresses the symptom and is presented as 'the problem,' signaling system-wide dysfunction.
- Scapegoating
- The family process of focusing blame and dysfunction onto one member (often the identified patient).
- Detriangling
- A Bowenian process of staying connected to two people in conflict without taking sides, lowering the system's reactivity.
- Genogram
- A graphic map of a family across three+ generations recording members, relationships, and patterns; a Bowenian assessment tool.
- Family of origin
- The family a person grew up in; a key focus of Bowenian and intergenerational work.
- Cybernetics
- The study of feedback and self-regulation in systems; the conceptual root of systemic family therapy.
- Wholeness (systems)
- The principle that a system is more than the sum of its parts and cannot be understood by examining members in isolation.
- Diversity & social justice (systemic)
- Integrating multiple dimensions of diversity (culture, race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, power) into systemic practice.
- Transference / countertransference
- The client's projected feelings onto the therapist (transference) and the therapist's reactions to the client (countertransference), attended to systemically.
- Relational diagnosis
- A formulation that describes the problem as a pattern between people rather than a disorder inside one person.
- DSM-5-TR
- The American Psychiatric Association's current diagnostic manual; MFTs use it for individual diagnosis while keeping a systemic perspective.
- DSM-5-TR relational problems (V/Z codes)
- Codes naming relational stressors (e.g., parent-child relational problem, partner relational distress) without pathologizing one member.
- Therapeutic alliance
- The collaborative bond between therapist and client system; built through joining and essential to assessment and change.
- Coalition
- An alliance of two members against a third, often crossing generational lines (e.g., a parent and child against the other parent).
- Cross-generational coalition
- A coalition between members of different generations (e.g., parent–child) that undermines the parental hierarchy.
- Family rules
- The explicit and implicit norms governing how a family interacts; assessed to understand its patterns.
- Hypothesizing
- Forming and continually revising tentative systemic explanations of what maintains the presenting problem.
- Presenting problem
- The issue the client brings to therapy, assessed within its relational and developmental context.
- Family life cycle
- Carter & McGoldrick's stages a family moves through over time; transitions are high-stress points where symptoms often emerge.
- Launching children stage
- The family life-cycle stage of renegotiating the couple as a dyad and forming adult relationships with grown children.
- Developmental stage assessment
- Evaluating where individuals and the family are in their developmental and life-cycle stages relative to the presenting problem.
- Strengths-based assessment
- Identifying the client system's coping skills, resources, and resilience to build on in treatment.
- Risk assessment (intake)
- Evaluating substance use, domestic violence, trauma, suicide, and violence risk as part of every assessment, not just crises.
- Cultural assessment
- Assessing acculturation, diversity, socio-economic status, spirituality, and power differentials affecting the client system.
- Standardized instruments
- Administering, interpreting, and using validated tests consistent with one's training, competence, and scope of practice.
- Reciprocal influence
- Assessing how psychiatric disorders, medical conditions, and substance use and the family system affect one another.
- Substance use assessment
- Evaluating the effects of substance abuse and dependency on individual and family functioning.
- Domestic violence assessment
- Assessing the presence and effects of intimate-partner or family violence on individuals and the system.
- Trauma history
- Assessing early childhood experiences and traumas and their impact on behavior, health, and the family system.
- Genogram symbols
- Standardized symbols on a genogram showing gender, relationship status, and relationship quality (close, conflictual, cutoff, fused).
- Determining who participates
- Deciding which members of the client system will take part in assessment and treatment.
- Referral (when to refer)
- Referring a client to another professional or service when needs fall outside one's competence or scope of practice.
- Collaboration with systems
- Working with the client, professional, and community systems to set treatment priorities.
- Therapeutic contract
- An agreement establishing the goals, roles, expectations, and parameters of treatment with the client system.
- Treatment plan
- A plan reflecting a contextual understanding of the presenting issues, with collaborative short- and long-term goals.
- Short- and long-term goals
- Treatment goals formulated by interpreting assessment information, in collaboration with the client.
- Termination criteria
- The conditions under which treatment will end, ideally identified when goals are first set.
- Safety plan
- A collaboratively developed, monitored plan to address identified risks such as domestic violence, suicide, or abuse.
- Selecting interventions
- Choosing therapeutic techniques based on theory and relevant research, matched to the client and goals.
- Sequencing treatment
- Determining the order of interventions and which members will be involved at each stage.
- Restructuring
- Facilitating client-system change by reorganizing boundaries, hierarchy, and interactional patterns.
- Family mapping
- Diagramming a family's structure (subsystems, boundaries, alignments) to guide and intervene in treatment.
- Metaphor (technique)
- Using imagery or analogy to shift a client's perception of the presenting issue and facilitate change.
- Mindfulness (technique)
- Cultivating present-moment, nonjudgmental awareness to help clients regulate emotion and reactivity.
- Psychoeducation
- Teaching clients about a condition, relationship dynamics, or skills to support change and self-management.
- Communication skills training
- Helping clients develop effective verbal and nonverbal communication within their relationships.
- Problem-solving skills
- Helping clients build decision-making, coping, and problem-solving abilities.
- Recovery-oriented care
- Developing and monitoring care for substance use disorders across the lifespan, oriented to recovery.
- Collateral systems
- Other people and services (schools, courts, medical providers) collaborated with throughout treatment as indicated.
- Attending to homeostasis
- Watching for the system's pull toward stability so it doesn't quietly undo therapeutic progress.
- Cultural responsiveness in treatment
- Choosing modalities and interventions that reflect the client's culture, abilities, diversity, and power context.
- Modalities (individual/couple/family/group)
- The configurations in which therapy is delivered; selected based on theory and the client system's needs.
- Maintaining the alliance
- Continuously evaluating and protecting the therapeutic alliance throughout treatment.
- Ordeal (strategic technique)
- A strategic directive making the symptom more burdensome to keep than to give up.
- Therapeutic letters
- A narrative technique using written letters to reinforce a client's preferred story and progress.
- Termination
- The planned, collaborative ending of therapy once goals are substantially met and gains can be maintained independently.
- Ongoing evaluation
- Continuously evaluating the therapeutic process and outcomes using theory, research, and client feedback.
- Modifying the treatment plan
- Adjusting the plan in collaboration with the client and collateral systems when progress stalls.
- Maintenance plan
- A plan developed with the client to sustain therapeutic gains after treatment ends.
- Relapse prevention
- Anticipating and planning for setbacks so the client can maintain progress after termination.
- Premature termination
- Ending therapy before goals are met or readiness is established; a risk that can harm the client.
- Abandonment
- Unethical, abrupt discontinuation of needed care without appropriate referral or planning.
- Outcome evaluation
- Judging whether treatment achieved its goals, used to guide modification and termination.
- Feedback-informed treatment
- Using client feedback to monitor progress and adjust the therapy.
- Consolidating change
- Reinforcing and solidifying gains as part of preparing for termination.
- Collaborative evaluation
- Evaluating progress together with the client and collateral systems as indicated.
- Stalled progress (response)
- When progress stalls, the cue is to revisit the hypothesis, alliance, or intervention — not to simply continue.
- Duty to warn / protect (Tarasoff)
- The duty to protect an identifiable victim from a client's serious, imminent threat of violence; a limit to confidentiality.
- Suicide risk assessment
- Evaluating ideation, plan, means, intent, history, hopelessness, and protective factors to determine risk and response.
- Asking about suicide
- Asking directly about suicide does not increase risk; failing to assess is the danger.
- Means restriction
- Reducing access to lethal means as part of a suicide safety plan.
- Safety planning
- Collaboratively developing a plan to keep a client safe during a crisis (warning signs, coping steps, contacts, means restriction).
- Crisis severity assessment
- Assessing how severe a crisis is to determine what immediate intervention, if any, is needed.
- Violence risk assessment
- Assessing risk of harm to the client from others and harm the client poses to others, including the therapist.
- Mandated reporting
- The legal duty to report reasonable suspicion of child, elder, or dependent-adult abuse, overriding confidentiality.
- Hospitalization (crisis)
- Arranging voluntary or involuntary hospitalization when a client cannot be kept safe by less restrictive means.
- Self-injurious behavior
- Assessing a client's potential for self-harm to determine the type and level of intervention.
- Vicarious trauma
- The cumulative emotional impact on a therapist of exposure to clients' trauma; therapists assess and respond to it in themselves.
- Consultation in crisis
- Consulting colleagues and other professionals during crises to support sound decisions.
- Imminent danger
- A serious, foreseeable threat of harm in the near term that triggers protective duties over confidentiality.
- Crisis intervention
- Short-term, focused action to stabilize a person in acute crisis and connect them to ongoing support; safety first.
- Teaching crisis-management skills
- Helping clients develop techniques to recognize and manage future crises.
- Trauma-informed response
- Assessing a client's trauma history to understand its impact on the current crisis and respond sensitively.
- AAMFT Code of Ethics
- The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy's ethical standards governing MFT practice.
- Informed consent
- The client's voluntary agreement to treatment after disclosure of its nature, fees, policies, confidentiality limits, risks, and benefits.
- Confidentiality
- The therapist's duty to protect client information; in couple/family work the secrets policy must be clarified upfront.
- Limits of confidentiality
- Situations (harm to self/others, abuse, court order) where confidentiality must yield to legal/ethical duties.
- Privileged communication
- A client's legal right to keep therapy communications out of court; held by the client and subject to exceptions.
- Dual (multiple) relationship
- A second role with a client (business, social, sexual) beyond the professional one that risks impaired judgment or exploitation.
- Sexual intimacy with clients
- Prohibited by the AAMFT Code; the prohibition extends for a defined period after termination.
- Scope of competence
- Practicing only within the boundaries of one's training, experience, and supervised competence.
- Continuing competence
- Maintaining and advancing professional skills through education, supervision, and research.
- No-secrets policy
- A confidentiality stance in couple/family therapy where the therapist will not keep individually disclosed secrets from other members.
- Who is the client?
- Clarifying, in family/couple work, whether the client is an individual, the couple, or the whole family — central to ethical practice.
- Professional disclosure statement
- Written disclosure of fees, office policies, training, and expertise provided to clients.
- Record keeping
- Maintaining accurate, timely, secure, and confidential records, with lawful retention and disposal.
- Mandated reporter duties
- Reporting reasonable suspicion (not proof) of abuse promptly to authorities, as required by state law.
- Therapist self-awareness
- Maintaining awareness of how one's own family-of-origin, values, and biases influence the work.
- Self-care
- Attending to one's own well-being to maintain competent, ethical practice.
- Exploitation (avoiding)
- Monitoring and mitigating any risk of exploiting clients for the therapist's benefit.
- Treatment agreements
- Adhering to the agreements made with clients about the parameters and conduct of treatment.
- Respecting client rights
- Honoring clients' autonomy, dignity, and rights throughout treatment.
- Forensic / legal responsibilities
- Meeting legal obligations such as court-ordered cases, testimony, expert-witness work, and custody hearings competently.
- Technology-assisted services
- Using technology (telehealth, records, communication) in accordance with legal, ethical, and professional standards.
- Statutes and regulations
- Adhering to relevant statutes, case law, and licensing-board regulations affecting practice.
- Interprofessional respect
- Respecting the roles and responsibilities of other professionals working with the client.
- Ethical consultation
- Consulting colleagues about clinical, ethical, and legal concerns as part of responsible practice.
- Insurance and third-party billing
- Handling third-party insurance claims honestly and within ethical and legal standards.
- Supervision
- Oversight by a qualified supervisor to ensure competent, ethical practice, especially during the pre-licensure period.
- General systems theory
- Von Bertalanffy's theory that systems are organized wholes whose parts interrelate; the foundation of family-systems thinking.
- Linear vs circular causality
- Linear causality is one-way blame (A causes B); circular causality is reciprocal, looping influence — the systemic view.
- Morphogenesis
- A system's capacity to change its structure to adapt; balanced against morphostasis (stability).
- Morphostasis
- A system's tendency to maintain its structure and stability (closely related to homeostasis).
- Complementary relationship
- An interactional pattern in which partners' behaviors differ and fit together (e.g., pursuer–distancer).
- Symmetrical relationship
- An interactional pattern in which partners mirror each other's behavior, which can escalate (e.g., both criticize).
- Pursuer–distancer pattern
- A common couple cycle in which one partner seeks closeness as the other withdraws, each move intensifying the other.
- Restraining (go slow)
- A strategic/MRI technique cautioning a client against changing too fast, paradoxically reducing resistance.
- Invariant prescription
- A Milan directive giving parents a secret, consistent task to strengthen the parental boundary against an enmeshed child.
- Object relations family therapy
- An intergenerational, psychodynamic model focusing on internalized images of relationships (introjects, projective identification).
- Projective identification
- A defense in which a person projects unwanted feelings onto another, who then enacts them; addressed in object-relations couples work.
- Functional family therapy (FFT)
- An evidence-based model for at-risk youth integrating engagement, behavior change, and generalization phases.
- Internal Family Systems (IFS)
- Richard Schwartz's model viewing the mind as parts (managers, exiles, firefighters) led by the Self.
- Constructivism / social constructionism
- The postmodern view that reality and meaning are co-constructed in language and relationships; underlies narrative and solution-focused work.
- Use of self (therapist)
- The therapist's deliberate use of their own personality, reactions, and presence as a therapeutic instrument (e.g., Whitaker).
- Family homeostat
- Jackson's idea that families regulate behavior to keep emotional balance, like a thermostat.
- Double bind
- Bateson's concept of contradictory messages from which a person cannot escape or comment, once theorized in schizophrenia research.
- Feedback (cybernetic)
- Information returned to a system about its behavior, enabling self-correction; central to systemic theory.
- Family structure (assessment)
- The organized, repeated patterns of how a family interacts, including boundaries, alignments, and hierarchy.
- Alignment
- Members joining together in a family activity or stance; healthy or, when rigid, problematic.
- Power (family)
- The relative influence members have over family outcomes; assessed within structure and hierarchy.
- Nonverbal communication (assessment)
- Reading tone, posture, and interaction to develop hypotheses about relationship patterns.
- Biopsychosocial assessment
- Assessing biological, psychological, and social/relational factors and their reciprocal influence on the client system.
- Sexual functioning assessment
- Assessing the effects of sexual behaviors and disorders on client and relational functioning, within competence.
- Technology impact assessment
- Assessing the positive and negative effects of technology use on the client system.
- Occupational stressors
- Assessing effects of occupational issues (e.g., military, first responders, dispersed workers) on individuals and families.
- Addictive behaviors (assessment)
- Assessing effects of behaviors such as gambling, internet, or compulsive activity on the family system.
- Treatment priorities
- Determining, collaboratively, which issues to address first based on risk, motivation, and impact.
- Engagement phase
- The early treatment phase focused on building alliance, motivation, and a shared understanding of the problem.
- Goal setting (collaborative)
- Setting measurable, client-centered goals together, derived from the assessment.
- Behavioral couples therapy
- An approach using behavior exchange, communication training, and problem-solving to change couple interaction.
- Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT)
- Christensen & Jacobson's model combining acceptance with behavior change for couples.
- Cognitive restructuring (couples/family)
- Identifying and changing distorted beliefs and attributions that maintain relational distress.
- Externalizing conversation
- A narrative technique mapping the problem's influence on the person and the person's influence on the problem.
- Compliment (solution-focused)
- Affirming a client's existing strengths and efforts to build motivation toward solutions.
- Coaching (Bowenian)
- The Bowenian therapist's stance of guiding clients to work on differentiation in their families of origin.
- Process vs content
- Process is how a family interacts; content is what they talk about — systemic therapists attend to process.
- Joining vs accommodation
- Joining is connecting with the family; accommodation is the therapist adjusting style to fit the family's.
- Goal attainment scaling
- A method of evaluating progress by rating how far client-specific goals have been met.
- Session rating / alliance measures
- Brief tools tracking the alliance and client satisfaction to inform treatment.
- Outcome measures
- Validated instruments tracking symptom and relational change over the course of therapy.
- Booster sessions
- Occasional follow-up sessions after termination to reinforce and maintain gains.
- Reviewing progress with collaterals
- Evaluating progress in collaboration with the client and involved collateral systems.
- Planned vs unplanned termination
- Planned termination is collaborative and goal-based; unplanned (dropout) requires outreach and good clinical/ethical handling.
- Suicide protective factors
- Factors lowering risk — strong relationships, reasons for living, coping skills, access to care, beliefs against suicide.
- Lethality of means
- How dangerous and accessible a chosen suicide method is; central to risk assessment and means restriction.
- Domestic violence safety planning
- Developing a concrete plan to increase safety for a victim of intimate-partner violence.
- Intimate partner violence types
- Distinguishing situational couple violence from coercive controlling violence to guide a safe response.
- Child abuse reporting
- Reporting reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect to authorities, overriding confidentiality.
- Elder / dependent-adult abuse
- Reporting suspected abuse or neglect of elders or dependent adults as required by law.
- Grave disability
- A condition in which a person cannot provide for basic needs, a possible basis for involuntary intervention.
- Crisis documentation
- Documenting the risk assessment, clinical reasoning, and protective actions taken during a crisis.
- Beneficence
- Acting for the client's benefit and well-being.
- Nonmaleficence
- Avoiding harm to the client ('do no harm').
- Autonomy (ethics)
- Respecting the client's right to make their own informed decisions.
- Justice (ethics)
- Treating clients fairly and equitably in access and care.
- Fidelity
- Keeping commitments and being trustworthy in the professional relationship.
- Boundary crossing vs violation
- A crossing is a minor, sometimes helpful deviation from the norm; a violation harms or exploits the client.
- Gifts (ethics)
- Handling client gifts thoughtfully, considering cultural meaning and risk of boundary problems.
- Bartering (ethics)
- Exchanging services or goods for therapy only cautiously, when not exploitative or clinically contraindicated.
- Duty of care
- The professional obligation to provide competent care and not to abandon a client in need.
- Minors and consent
- Navigating who consents and what stays confidential when treating minors, per state law and assent.
- Release of information
- Disclosing records only with proper authorization; conjoint-therapy records need consent of the parties involved.
- Cultural competence (ethics)
- The ethical duty to provide services responsive to clients' cultural backgrounds and contexts.
- Reporting impaired colleagues
- Addressing the unethical or impaired practice of colleagues responsibly.
