To us, body-psychotherapists, ethical principles shape interpersonal behaviour which is honest, life-enhancing and avoids needless pain. The following statements reflect our feeling that ethical guidelines should express these qualities in feeling as well as in application.

Our work is dedicated to freeing the life energy of human beings and help move it in the direction of clarity, freedom, love, honesty, compassion *, respect and joy. In order to serve that purpose, we as body-psychotherapists commit ourselves to examine constantly our actions, motives and attitudes in all professional relationships.

We enter into a multitude of complex relationships, individual therapy, group therapy, training, supervision and colleague interactions as well as all the interfaces between them. In all these positions, we also represent our field in the eyes of the public.

We recognise that in all therapy, training, supervision and consultation, we are involved in varying degrees of asymmetrical relationships, in which we have the primary responsibility for appropriateness of content, context, and boundaries. Our actions are therefore governed by our perception of the requirements of the relationship in question. We realise that our goals are influenced, both by our overt actions, and our state of being.

We realise that our position is unique in our societies, in that we encompass the fields and methods of both psychotherapy and body-therapy, and that we therefore must be especially attentive and sensitive to boundary issues of all kinds: physical, psychological, and particularly around the issues of sexuality.

We accept responsibility for keeping up with new developments in psychotherapy, for improving and updating our skills and knowledge, for obtaining advice and support from our colleagues as needed - and when necessary for seeking therapy ourselves to resolve personal problems.