‘I am not your friend’: contract in counselling and psychotherapy

The largest professional body of counsellors in Australia defines the relationship between counsellor and client as contractual ‘and nothing else’. While contract law has been traditionally associated with ‘rational’, arms-length, commercial relationships, counselling and psychotherapy have been associated with intimate, emotional relationships, work, and exchange. What is the significance, therefore, of these seemingly dissonant discourses coming together in the counselling and therapeutic relationship? Is there a place for formal and distant contract law in the flexible and intimate therapy room? This article examines the role of contract in counselling and psychotherapy, and rather than finding a dissonance, it finds an important and productive relationship between the two. Drawing on interviews with registered practitioners in Australia, this article shows that contract performs both an ‘infrastructural’ and ‘therapeutic’ function. It provides a framework for service delivery and the meeting of professional standards, while simultaneously operating as a therapeutic tool. Importantly, in this self-regulated setting, the analysis demonstrates how practitioners navigate the ‘formality’ of contract to advance a broader formation of professional identity.