[Ethical implications in the psychotherapeutic relationship]

The psychotherapeutical relationship is part of the communication sciences. Therefore some authors as e.g. J. Habermas consider the ethics of the psychotherapeutical relationship to be paradigmatical for the ethics of communication. The ethical problems of psychotherapy are particularly important, since the patient-psychotherapist relationship is the main instrument of therapy. The ethical problems vary according to the type of psychotherapeutical relationship, which in turn depends on the form of psychotherapy. Therefore the ethical problems will successively be considered in the psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapies, the behavior therapies and the systemic therapies. Finally the more general ethical problem of the relations of psychotherapists with power will be discussed.