[Informed consent: a prerequisite for psychotherapy?].

Abstract

Is it desirable to extend the practice of explicit informed consent to psychotherapy? Is it possible? How? This article offers preliminary answers to these questions following a literature review and reflection on the theory of informed consent and psychotherapy. It explores the advantages and the possibility of using explicit informed consent in place of the implicit consent obtained currently. Explicit consent for psychotherapy would be interactive, iterative, repeated and revokable. It would take into account specific characteristics of psychotherapy, such as the fact that it is a process rather than a procedure, its relative unpredictability, the active part the patient plays in treatment, and the importance of the unconscious, transference and counter-transference. It would have the advantages of respecting the patients' autonomy without sacrificing their well-being, of having meaning not only for medico-legal protocols but for the patient, and would improve satisfaction with and the efficacy of psychotherapy as a treatment modality. The proposed model provides direction for future research, both empirical and theoretical.