The fundamental values of counselling and psychotherapy include a commitment to:

• Respecting human rights and dignity
• Ensuring the integrity of practitioner-client relationships
• Enhancing the quality of professional knowledge and its application
• Alleviating personal distress and suffering
• Fostering a sense of self that is meaningful to the person(s) concerned
• Increasing personal effectiveness
• Enhancing the quality of relationships between people
• Appreciating the variety of human experience and culture
• Striving for the fair and adequate provision of counselling and psychotherapy services

   

Values inform principles. They represent an important way of expressing a general ethical commitment that becomes more precisely defined and action-orientated when expressed as a principle.