Bartering in Psychotherapy: Ethical and Clinical Considerations

This intermediate-level course explores the complexities of bartering in the context of boundary crossings and dual relationships in psychotherapy. The course maps types of bartering (i.e. goods, services), discusses the relationships between and definitions of bartering, boundary crossing and dual relationships, explores the applications to poor clients and to those from different cultures, provides bartering vignettes, reviews the ethics codes on bartering, outlines the objections to bartering and offers clinical and ethical guidelines for employing, specifically, bartering and, more generally, boundary crossing and dual relationships.

The course consists of one short introductory video (transcript provided), two audios with transcripts and three articles. The first set includes one audio and two articles and discusses the complexities and types of bartering. The following audio then provides the more general context of psychotherapeutic boundaries in which the discussion of boundaries is taking place. The final article critically reviews the different Professional Associations’ Codes of Ethics on Bartering in psychotherapy. Additional resources and references are provided for further study, but they are not part of the course.