385: The Six-Question Rationale in the 2026 BACP Ethical Framework

Counselling Tutor podcast

The episode explores critical updates for counselling professionals, focusing on the upcoming 2026 BACP Ethical Framework and its new six-ques

Key takeaways

• The BACP is set to issue a new ethical framework on November 4, 2026, which will be mandatory for all members.
• A new 'six-question rationale' will require therapists to document the steps and reasoning behind their ethical decisions.

Main topics

• BACP 2026 Ethical Framework
• Six-Question Rationale

Notable quotes

The rationale really means, you know, how you did something, the steps you took to get to a conclusion.

Conclusion

This episode serves as an essential guide for practitioners preparing

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) As a qualified practitioner, you'll know that our understanding of autism is ever-evolving. More autistic clients are coming into the therapy room and people are actively looking for a therapist who understands neurodivergence. Counseling Tutor's Autism Informed Practice Training is a 45-hour CPD qualification built by a neurodivergent team. A balance of self-directed learning and an intimate live workshop where the theory comes to life. Download your free handbook at counsellingtutor.com, click products and select autism informed practice. Speaker 1 (0:43) Hello and welcome to episode 385 of the Counselling Tutor podcast. I'm Rory and it's been long understood that a therapist's way of being, their therapeutic presence, persona and how they show up in the room can significantly impact on the outcome of therapy. But what does that mean in practice? Today I'm joined again by Claire Ratcliffe, a psychotherapist based in Manchester. to explore how the therapist's presence, relational style and engagement with the client can support positive therapeutic change. We'll be looking at what the therapist may need to process within themselves, including transference, counter-transference and the emotional material that could emerge in the therapeutic relationship. So with that said, let's roll the intro. Welcome Speaker 4 (1:37) to the Counselling Tutor Podcast. the must-listen-to podcast for counsellors, psychotherapists and counselling students. Speaker 4 (1:49) Here are your hosts, Rory Lees-Oaks and Ken Kelly. Speaker 3 (1:54) A very warm welcome to episode 385 of the Counselling Tutor podcast with Rory Lees-Oaks and Ken Kelly. Rory and I walking you through three stops on today's journey, starting with ethical, sustainable practice. And today we're going to be speaking about ethical decision-making. We're going to be mapping this back to a recent BACP 2018. and 26 update and looking at six questions that every counsellor should ask. And then we're going to be moving straight into practice matters. And Rory, you've already beautifully teed this up with Claire Ratcliffe. And what is relational psychotherapy? So I'm certainly looking forward to that one. And then in student services today, recognising you students on your formal journey, we're going to be speaking about reflective journals in. counselling training. I think this has got a broader appeal because reflective journals are good to keep throughout the arc of your career and it all starts in your counselling training so we're going to be putting the building blocks of that together but we're starting off Rory about ethical decision making and particularly the six questions that we should be asking ourselves. What do we need to know Rory? Speaker 1 (3:04) Well what we need to know is that in in November of 2026, I think it's the 4th of November 2026, the BACP are issuing a new ethical framework. And after that date, every therapist who's a member of the BACP has to work to that ethical framework. Every therapist, every counsellor, every supervisor has to work to that framework. And one of the things that is a theme... throughout that framework is collaboration and it's it's baked in right into the middle of the framework being collaborative with everyone that you come to work with be it clients or if you're working with your supervisor talking about clients but also ethical decision making now ethical decision making matrixes or decision grids have been around for a number of years. But this time in the framework, the BACP are talking about something called a six question rationale. And the rationale really means, you know, how you did something, the steps you took to get to a conclusion. And every therapist who's a member will now have to use that rationale to be able to justify their actions should they have an ethical dilemma. with a client and you know I think this is I think this is very well much welcomed because it gives everybody a a flat playing field to be on it gives supervisors a set of questions to ask their supervisees if you've got an ethical problem it gives therapists a base to start using ethical decision making but here's the thing Ken It is going to be mandatory, which means that if you have a call to account, this is going to form the basis of what we call ethical or defensible decision making. And these six questions are designed to help you think about how you're making decisions, how you're thinking about in the best. thoughts of the clients. Speaker 3 (5:30) Yeah, it's important, it's interesting, and you spoke about the collaboration, it's clearly evident in this, and of course you mentioned that this becomes mandatory, it becomes mandatory if you are a member of the BACP and work to their ethical framework, but as we've mentioned when we've been introducing this framework as we're going along, it's likely there's going to be a broader adoption of this as we look to other professional bodies, there may be putting similar things in the ethical framework. This is a way of thinking across our sector in counselling and psychotherapy, at least here in the United Kingdom. And the word rational was, it's not a word I use on a regular basis, I'll be honest with you. It's not in my everyday lingo here in North Wales, walking around talking about people, telling them about my rational French, I think it is. So for me, a really useful way of looking at this is, when we have an ethical framework, challenge or something that we're facing, what our decision is, the outcome is one thing. The rationale is how we reached that decision. And we've spoken about it, writing down and keeping a record of your critical thinking. And it's good practice anyway. So I think this is very welcomed, Rory. It's certainly welcome from my side that we see this. They're saying, Ask these questions, document it, make your decision based on the best you can. And remember, if we are called to account at a future date, it's not that we made the right decision. You know, we can all make a decision that turns out to not be the right decision at the end of the day. How did you reach that decision? Why did you make that decision? And your rationale, even if the decision didn't turn out to be the best at the end of the day, your rationale can defend your decision-making process. So it's very, very useful. So it makes the ethical reasoning visible rather than, well, that seemed like the best idea at the time. Speaker 3 (7:35) importantly and you mentioned this word it encourages collaboration because if i'm going through these thinking uh processes i'm going to maybe speak to colleagues i'm maybe going to start reading around that topic and doing a bit of research i'm maybe going to take it into supervision and all of this is becoming collaborative right now um as i'm going through the problem the process and it helps practitioners recognize their personal relation relational and cultural legal and organizational influences because we have to consider them in the decision making that we're doing. And we've spoken about this when we were looking at adopting digital tools. If you're adopting a digital tool, you're going to be looking at all those elements and going through a rationale, asking yourself questions around that and basically recording that as your defensible decision. making so it supports meaningful discussion in supervision helps identify further learning or cpd if you hit an area where you go oh but i actually don't know that well hey what a great opportunity go and do some cpd in that area educate yourself ask colleagues ask your supervisor and it most importantly it provides a clear account if a decision later needs to be explained to an employer, a professional body, a court, a conduct panel, and to a client. If we're looking for informed consent, as we've spoken about in previous episodes for a tool we're using, well, we need to explain the rationale of what our findings were of that tool if we're going to gain informed consent from a client. So really, really useful. But you said, Rory, six questions. Walk us down the questions. Speaker 1 (9:23) Yes, and just before I move into those questions, Ken, I want to say a little bit about something you've mentioned three or four times in your preamble, is that this is about thinking. It's about thinking. It's not about feeling or hunches. It's about thinking. These questions are formulated to enable you to think about the dilemma or the ethical issue. that you have in front of you and the first question that you're asked to think about is what are the ethical issues so i'll give you an example a client said that they're thinking of taking their own life you know what are the ethical issues around this i'm not going to give you the answer here this is this is for each individual practitioner listening to to have a think about it but you start off with a very very straightforward question what am i going to have to think about here what are what are the ethical issues and you know the ethical issues could be um identifying everybody who may be affected by the decision um considering the professional benefits harms risks and urgency um competing ethical principles you know if you're working um in an organization you may have competing ethical principles core responsibilities and professional duties and i think and these these are sort of my words if you like in the handout Have I distinguished facts from assumptions, interpretations and information that is still missing? So very, very much when you're looking at the ethical issues, thinking very deeply about what is it that you're going to be looking at and describing the issue in clear, neutral and factual language. Speaker 3 (11:21) I know that's question one before you go on to question two. It sounds really simplistic, but this is, I think, the key that everything pivots on. Because we're called to describe the challenge or the issue in clear, neutral, and factual language. And that's trickier than it sounds, because only if you... clearly identify what the challenge is, can you ethically think around it? If you've got muddiness in how you've described that, it becomes challenging. And I know that within... our training to run counseling due to Rory. We went on courses in the United States of America. And one of the things that we learned is how important it is to, when you have a challenge within your business, clearly identify and capture what that is. Because we can work on solutions that end up not fixing what. the actual challenge was because it wasn't defined clearly enough. So I think this is a really important one. It sounds simple. Oh, I'm just going to write down what the ethical issue is. But getting it and defining it and distilling it down into the true essence of that with those questions that you've shared, Rory, which are in the handout, is, I think, really important. So thank you for that. So where do we move on to from there, Rory? Speaker 1 (12:39) Well, in question two, what steps, if any, will be taken to engage the person? to be impacted by the decision now i'm going to pause there we're now talking about the collaborative aspect of this that runs through the whole the whole ethical framework so what steps if any will be taken to engage the person to be impacted by the decision is that the client is that the supervisee trainee organization research participant for example in the decision making process so our are those people, if we're going to have to make an ethical decision, how do we include them if possible? And if we're not going to do this, or it's not possible, why not? So again, it starts off from this fundamental first position of collaboration. So if you're going to make any decision, we have to think about how we're going to engage the person who may be impacted by that decision. And if we can't, Speaker 1 (13:42) Why are we not doing it? Or why is it not possible? And we're going to have to state that because remember, these are going to form the basis of the questions that you're going to be asked if you ever have to defend your decision. If you're ever brought in front of a conduct panel, you've mentioned the law. You've also mentioned, we didn't mention coroner's courts. And once this comes into... practice once it's set within the framework i think a lot of external organizations are going to hone in and focus in on this decision-making process as a way of understanding a therapist's rationale which we used early on of thinking how they thought about when they were making looking at a problem and the evidence to consider i think here is have i identified the person or people that should be involved Have I considered how power, identity, communication, needs and reasonable adjustments may affect participation? Have I explained the issue, choices, foreseeable risks and limitations as clearly as possible? And have I listened to and recorded the person's views, wishes and concerns? A little bit of a pause there. The word recorded could give us some difficulty. That could be writing it down. um some people with permission may record some people they want to record with permission and then if collaboration is limited or not possible have i recorded the specific and proportionate reason so if someone won't engage in the process where you're trying to go through an ethic work out an ethical issue and the person won't engage with you you have to record the specific and proportionate reasons that they cannot collaborate with you. So again, there's a lot to think about there, isn't there, Ken? Speaker 3 (15:37) If you're a counsellor in private practice and you need a website, or you've got one that could do with an upgrade, WebHealer are offering counselling tutor podcast listeners £100 off the cost of a website design and build. WebHealer specialise in websites for counsellors and psychotherapists. It's all... they do. Their team provide a completely non-technical, done-for-you solution so that you can focus on your time with your clients. They've been doing this for over 20 years and are a trusted name amongst counsellors when it comes to getting your practice online. Get the full package details and claim your £100 off coupon at counsellingtutor.com forward slash. website. The clues are there again and again and again, collaborative, writing it down and recording it. So we, rather than saying, I discussed this with the client and they weren't keen on it. You would rather say in session six on this date, I fully explained it like this to the client and maybe they said X, Y, Z. It's defendable decision-making, again. It's very easy to forget these things. So you can go through this process. You can keep all these notes. You can go through everything we're talking about right now. But when it comes to the crunch, it may be a year, two years, four years later that you have to reach for the document where you did this. defendable decision making and refer to things that will be out of memory. So having as much information to jog your memory and recording the specific facts around it, specifically when you're collaborating, what they said, how they felt about it, and making sure that that is documented so you can evidence that you went through that process, Rory. I hope I've understood that correctly. Speaker 1 (17:33) Yeah, you have. And, you know, an example may be a supervisee who is struggling with substance misuse. And, you know, they turn up to a session under the influence and you can clearly see they're under the influence. And you try and address that and they won't have anything to do with it. They say, oh, I'm not talking about that. There's nothing wrong with me. You know. then if they won't engage and collaborate, then you're going to have to write chapter and verse. And I think it's worth reflecting, Ken, that this evidence that we go through that I'm talking about is my interpretation of the questions. It may be that the BACP give some specific guidance because what they're going to do is have guidance, information, best practice documents. But I think in the handout, the the checklists that we're talking about have a good start they're a really good start um and that really leads us on to question three which is what relevant internal factors considered in the decision making process how will they impact the decision you make and i guess you could look at um internal factors being the work and its relationships they could include identity and diversity the contract you know everybody's got to have a contract now a good contract the nature of the work ethical principles and um relational dynamics of course you know therapists own responses and i guess a good checklist would start with i've considered relevant aspects of identity cultural age disability gender sexuality race ethnicity and belief basically i've i've taken considerations of the equalities act is what it's asking the UK Equalities Act. I have considered and agreed contract boundaries, expectations and the nature of the work. This is something that is going to come up in any hearing. You're going to ask for your contract. So you need a really good contract. And we've done lots of podcasts on contracting in the past. So contracts are important. Speaker 1 (19:50) Then go on to think about reflected on the relationship power dynamics, any risk of oppression or exclusion. So it's asking you some really tough questions, really. You know, it's asking you, as they say in the modern parlance, have you checked your privilege? You know, are you doing this because of any, you know, subconscious bias or anything like that? And then have I taken into account my own feelings, values, assumptions? bias conflicts of interest or personal investment personal investment and by that personal investment is you know can i separate the ethical the ethical side of what i'm having to consider from the personal relationship and the facts that are the matter are here ken that if you have to maybe break confidentiality um that personal investment may be um wiped out because you know sometimes when you when you have to break confidentiality for for the right reasons the client may not want to engage with you again and the relationship's not the same and have i considered how ethical principles and core responsibilities apply in this situation just reading through this i think this is one of the things a lot of people are going to be taken to supervision to talk to and make sense. I would. I'd be booking a double supervision. I'd be booking a supervision especially for this. Yes. Because it's going to be a fundamental cornerstone of defending any decision you make if you're ever, ever brought in front of a professional body or a professional panel. So, yeah, attention to it, I think, is the key outcome here. Speaker 3 (21:36) Oh, without a doubt. And it structures itself beautifully where one question leads beautifully onto the next one. I want to go back to question two. So we're speaking now about the supervisee. The hypothetical situation, the supervisee comes in. They're under the influence of something. We pick this up and we go through question two and we kind of challenge them on that. This question three one is interesting. I'm going to relate it to my journey. Have I considered the agreed contract boundaries and expectations and nature of the work? Well, if I'm working with a supervisee and they're turning up under