Premium
Origins of the ethical attitude
Author(s) -
McFarland Solomon Hester
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of analytical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.285
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1468-5922
pISSN - 0021-8774
DOI - 10.1111/1465-5922.00256
Subject(s) - premise , foundation (evidence) , subjectivity , humanity , psychology , reciprocal , relation (database) , social psychology , environmental ethics , engineering ethics , epistemology , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics , database , computer science , engineering
This paper seeks to explore the genesis of the capacity for an ethical attitude, personally and professionally. As analysts working in intimate clinical settings, ethics is at the foundation of our professional lives, as it is at the foundation of our humanity and what it is we struggle towards in our own personal development. The ethical attitude presupposes special responsibilities that we choose to adopt in relation to another. Thus, a parallel situation pertains between caregiver and child and between analyst and patient: they are not equal partners, but nevertheless are in a situation of mutuality, shared subjectivity, and reciprocal influence. The basic premiss of this paper is that the analytic attitude is an ethical attitude, and that the ethical attitude is a developmental achievement, and as such it may reach beyond the depressive position.