Author(s): Michael Carroll

Counselling

This is an ambitious book. It moves from a view of ethics and ethical decision making as meeting basic and minimal requirements to the presentation of a model of ethical maturity - how to be the best professional you can be. Most practitioners head for codes of ethics and ethical frameworks to help them resolve ethical issues and dilemmas. They go 'outside' rather than 'inside'. Ethical Maturity in the Helping Professions suggests a different approach that views ethical codes and frameworks as the first stepping stone to a higher ethic - an ethic of fidelity, relationships, and trust. Building on Rest's four components of ethical practice, Michael Carroll and Elisabeth Shaw propose six components that together make up what they call 'ethical maturity' or practical ethical wisdom. Born from who we are, and fashioned on the anvil of experience and knowledge, the book challenges helping professionals to review what they mean by ethics and suggests they step up to a higher ethic of relational accountability.