Honoring the Web of Life in Our Professional Healing Relationships

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This groundbreaking book assists those in healing professions to understand their own integrity as a healer. Ethics is expanded from traditional arenas, such as honesty and confidentiality, to encompass tenets of non-harming needed to deal with the many aspects of nontraditional areas, such as shamanism and expanded consciousness. Through honest self-reflection of areas addressed in this book, healers can increase their awareness of areas in their professional roles where they may unknowingly inflict harm or conflict. The basis of a spiritual life is one in which no harm is done to others or self so true healing can occur.

Most courses in ethics emphasize rules and the avoidance of litigation. An examination of our personal relationship to ethical issues can provide us with insights into ourselves as well as insights into our relationships with clients. Our personal familiarity with the pain and fear of new territories of spiritual development and different states of consciousness that we bring into the caring relationship with the client may have greater impact on the outcome than the choice of technique(s) we use in the therapeutic relationship. If we understand how our feelings and motivations around money, sexuality, power, love, truth, inspiration and oneness affect our relationships with others, we can enter into deeper healing relationships with our clients. This expanded therapeutic paradigm of ethics increases our professional options as healing professionals as we support our clients.

Ethics deals with one’s relationship between the inner self and personal values to one’s external actions. It is the process in which harmony between the inner and outer aspects of ourselves develops. As the therapist works with the client’s consciousness, there must be an honoring of the client’s ethical connections. This honoring must extend beyond he multifaceted relationship between the therapist and client to relationships with family, friends, race, nation, nature and all living things.

In 1994, Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel spoke of the forgotten aspect of democracy which transcends beyond a personal, ethnic, or religious viewpoint to a global ethical relationship. The omission of this aspect of democracy "leads to a loss of respect for everything else". Havel’s interconnection principle is the web of life which describes the interconnection of all individuals in all areas. The web of life is seen in synchronically and the power of prayer. It is the knowledge that what each person does affects another person as well as self.

Rachel Naomi Remen sees ethics as values which translates morality into our daily lives. As we reflect on our ethics, we create a dialogue between our inner values and our actions in relationships with others, including our clients. This reflection makes it easier to obey the most important rule of a therapeutic relationship which is do no harm.

A therapist’s ethics are judged by her behavior. High ethical behavior of an individual is viewed as integrity. If we define integrity as wholeness, then the therapist demonstrating high ethical behavior is mirroring the harmonious balance between her inner values and her actions. Since we as humans are imperfect, integrity is actually the movement of behavior towards wholeness. Holotropic is a term developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof to define this movement toward mental, physical, psychological and spiritual wholeness.

Holotropic ethics is more than moral or ethical codes; it is the unchanging spiritual non-judgmental connection of humans. Ethics goes beyond rules or guidelines (abstract principles of right and wrong) to become decisions made on the basis of relationship(s) to others. Rita Manning views ethics as conclusions or actions developed in response to the reality of the situation and the individual in that situation.

Therapists’ ethics can be challenged as they deal with clients’ intense or non-ordinary states of consciousness in therapeutic sessions. There are no pat answers for situations such as when it is appropriate to touch a client in crisis. It is dependent upon the circumstances and the motivations of the therapist. Therefore the appropriateness of the therapist’s behavior can not be judged without an examination of all aspects of the situation. But if ethical conduct is not defined, then how are ethical standards developed? It is necessary to have guidelines, but rather than the guidelines being external sources such as legislative rules, the guidelines are better coming from an internal focus. This means that the therapist decides on ethical action after examining her motives and values. If we as therapists do not examine our motivations and values, then our responses to our clients actions may be unethical, uncaring and inflexible.

An ethical therapeutic relationship allows the client to take actions which may disconnect her from some of her relationships and supports in order to heal. The disconnection is actually aspect of relationship to others. The therapist with a transcendental viewpoint can honor this disconnection as a truth rather than as a separation. The honoring of the client’s relationships with power animals, spirit guides or God as well as the honoring of the disconnection of relationships with family is a demonstration of ethical behavior by both the therapist and the client. The transcendental viewpoint is the inner acknowledgment that we are all interrelated. This viewpoint does not develop externally, but only through our own inner work where we find our connection to all others. Albert Schweitzer called this reverence for life which is similar to the Buddhist concept of right relationships. These concepts are based on the golden rule and the knowledge that we do not live alone in the world.

The definition of ethical behavior for this book is reverence for life demonstrated by right relationship to another.