ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE CARING PROFESSIONS

The main purpose of this article is to offer a general overview of different ethical theories applied to the caring professions. The article emphasises the importance of certain emergent ethical approaches such as ethics of compassion, ethics of care, ethics of virtue and constructionism. The authors' starting position is that emotions, compassion, care and virtues are very important in interventions and that these factors can improve the professional practice of psychologists, health professionals and social workers. We highlight the relevance of the relationship between users and professionals to the practices of the caring professions.