NONROMANTIC, NONSEXUAL POSTTHERAPY RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGISTS AND FORMER CLIENTS - AN EXPLORATORY-STUDY OF CRITICAL INCIDENTS

The authors asked 320 psychologists to participate in a nonrandom, exp loratory study by providing incidents of nonromantic, nonsexual relati onships with former clients. In addition, these psychologists were ask ed to discuss whether they saw these relationships as ethically proble matic. A total of 91 useable incidents (from a final sample size of 63 respondents) were sorted into eight relationships categories. The res ults of this study highlight several issues: (a) Psychologists are dea ling with a variety of nonromantic, nonsexual relationships with forme r clients, (b) there is little consensus about the ethicality of these contacts, and (c) future revisions of the Ethics Code (American Psych ological Association, 1992) may need to consider nonsexual and nonroma ntic relationships with former clients.