Ethical dilemmas in clinical supervision. 1: Need for guidelines

Abstract

In this article, the first of two parts, the authors focus on ethical dilemmas in clinical supervision. Given that there may be several factors that contribute to the limited uptake of clinical supervision, the authors suggest that one reason might be the clinician's concern and confusion regarding the potential ethical dilemmas that could arise when providing clinical supervision. Most issues do not produce ethical dilemmas, but some do. Therefore, this article offers a brief description of the purpose and alleged benefits of supervision, and examines the current position of the law in regard to ethical dilemmas within supervision. It then provides six vignettes where supervisors are faced with ethical dilemmas. These will be discussed in the second part of this article.