AAMFT ETHICAL CODE: “DUAL RELATIONSHIPS”

Abstract

The current American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Code of Ethical Principles prohibits an apparently wide, but vaguely defined, range of nonsexual, and presumably nonromantic dual relationships between therapists and clients, supervisers, employees and students. We suggest that this extension of the dual relationship prohibition is undesirable, for a variety of reasons. The most important of these is that attempting to make relationships simple by legislation, rather than dealing with inevitable complexity, prepares students poorly for the work they must do. Instead, we propose that training and supervision include serious emphasis on relationship complexity, and issues of exploitation and power, within the therapy relationship and within the training program or supervision itself.