Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct of the Grinberg Method® Practitioners Introduction:
The Grinberg Method's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct is a direct outcome of the Grinberg Method's discipline. Naturally, it includes elements which appear in other methods and practices as they are moral rights and wrongs that are expected to be kept by any professional who provides a service. Yet the reason for their appearance in the Grinberg Method's code is beyond moral; it is based on the fact that practitioners can only be professionals when adopting and implementing the ethics detailed below. Not doing so implies that they also failed to apply in their practice basic concepts and the discipline on which their profession as Grinberg Method practitioners is based.To clarify this claim, each of the articles below, with which practitioners are expected to comply, includes a short description (in italic blue font) of the core principle on which the article is based. Most articles comply with several principles; the one which is detailed is the most outstanding in relation to the specific article.As a background: the Grinberg Method has no political or religious affiliations, thus one can be a client regardless of education, cultural group or age. Nevertheless, due to the nature of a process, one should be able - and have the wish - to learn.
The role of the practitioner
The Grinberg Method is a discipline of attention; it requires practitioners to pay attention to their surroundings rather than be self-centered. As it is a teaching method, the role of a practitioner demands, as a base, the following two core aspects:
Practitioners would teach others only what they demonstrate personally through their own learning and the way in which they take responsibility over their life.
Everything about the practitioner should allow the client's trust and confidence. Using learning through the body, the practitioner leads the client through a process that involves experiences of different depths and intensity, which ultimately aims to create the sought after effect in the client's life. Trust and confidence are needed so the client could accompany the practitioner on that challenging path.
In order to achieve these core aspects in the practitioner's profession, the need for the ethics, as they are defined below, is inevitable.
Detailed ethics
Regarding the process
In relation to the professional surroundings
About the practitioner
1. Regarding the Process1.1 The practitioner should stay within their professional limitations and not work with clients who have a life threatening condition or are, for any reason, unable to learn.
(The Grinberg Method perceives people as basically able to learn and requires learning to achieve the individual effect one seeks.)1.2 The practitioner avoids working with people who have a close connection between them or to the practitioner. If personal interest develops, the practitioner will stop the process and may refer the client to a colleague for the continuation of the process.
(A successful process requires detachment. As a process may touch intimate, profound matters in people's lives, no matter how touched we are, detachment will allow us to remain focused on the client and not get carried away.)1.3 The practitioner cannot guaranty the length of a process to achieve the client's aim, assure predefined results or make any healing promises.
(The process is an individual one, with no recipes or prescriptions to "treat" conditions, thus its outcome cannot be predefined with accuracy, nor established to meet a certain definite time frame.)1.4 The practitioner starts and continues the process only when and as long as it is apparent to both client and practitioner, that it benefits the client's life and progresses towards the client's aims. When noticing that the client requires more advanced skills or abilities, the practitioner encourages the client to work with a more experienced colleague.
(Our conduct as practitioners is the expression of who we are as humans. When the wish to ensure financial gain or maintain one's pride becomes the leading factor in the practitioner's choices, it will cause a diminished level of proficiency.)1.5 The practitioner keeps confidential the client's identity and all other personal information regarding the client or a third party received during the process. This obligation has no time limit and will be kept after the end of the process. The practitioner may pass identifiable information from the client's file only when given the client's consent.
(A core issue in a person's life can only be revealed and dealt with when the client's confidence in the practitioner's commitment to confidentiality is complete.)1.6 The practitioner has an obligation to act according to the local law when a client brings to the practitioner's attention information regarding an ongoing or imminent danger to others.
(On the whole, a Grinberg Method process aims to allow people to get more of their personal freedom, in whichever individual manner they miss it. One's personal freedom cannot be based on taking away that of another; neither of the person who might be or is in danger, nor that of the practitioner.)1.7 The practitioner respects the client as an independent individual and any expression of the client's free will.
(The Grinberg Method perceives people as different from one another in their potential and does not dictate any particular life style or way of being; the methodology is based on conducting a process that fits to the individual.)1.8 The practitioner has a transparent, clear teaching attitude and aims, and does not exploit the client in any form whether sexually, emotionally, financially, by way of influencing the client with religious beliefs or ideologies or involving the client in activities that do not serve the client in the process.
(In order to guide the process and be a personal example of learning, practitioners are expected to be powerful people but not to abuse their power by inflicting it on others.)1.9 The practitioner makes sure to use a language that is clear for the client and to explain any professional terms that are used.
(Being a practitioner does not imply being in a position of superiority. The success of the process depends on the partnership created between the practitioner and client.)1.10The intensity and strength of the practitioner's teaching through touch should be adapted to fit the client, serve the aim of the process, take into account the client's input and always respect the client's dignity and intimacy.
(Trust, based and established not only through the client's understanding but through the client's experience, is fundamental for a successful process.)2. In relation to the professional surroundings
2.1 The practitioner is an independent professional and as such is not a representative of any of the Grinberg Method's legal structures. In any presentation, full information regarding the practitioner's professional training should be provided.
(The methodology aims to teach people to get closer to who they are and be well with it. Through a clear, confident presentation of the practitioner's training, knowledge and experience within the Grinberg Method the practitioner provides a personal example to the implementation of this intention.)2.2 Any legal structure, within which the practitioner works, should allow the practitioner's complete professional independence.
(To allow the practitioner to keep his discipline and best serve the client's aims for the process, the practitioner cannot be subject to any pressure, influence or the need to adapt to any third party demands.)2.3 The practitioner's relationships with colleagues, the different Grinberg Method's establishments and others within the professional surroundings can only exist when based on personal responsibility.
(Being an independent individual and learning to be well means upholding personal responsibility for one's life, in other words, not perceiving one's self as the victim of events and circumstances, past or present.)2.4 In general the practitioner's conduct should be one of integrity; not spreading unfounded statements, disrespectful declarations, judgments or rumors, and in particular not acting in a way that could damage the dignity of the profession.
(Successfully practicing the discipline of attention implies, among other things, constantly acting towards expanding one's attention and keeping the focus of one's intentions and will.)2.5 The practitioner makes sure not to confuse or combine techniques of different origins while working with the Grinberg Method.
(As the Grinberg Method is a discipline which gives a complete approach to an individual process, including strategy, attitude, adaptation according to results, techniques and more, incorporating other concepts will not allow the practitioner to follow the process to its successful completion and may shift its aim and results in an unknown direction.)2.6 The practitioner maintains working premises and personal appearance to achieve the best conditions to conduct the process.
(The discipline of learning requires having a space that allows for any experience or expression. To achieve this, the practitioner's personality or taste should not influence or limit the client.)3. About the practitioner
3.1 The practitioner takes care of their health and in general of their well-being.
(To teach a person to be well - the principal aim of any process in the Grinberg Method - requires the practitioner's perception, attention, clarity and ability to use the qualities and strength available in the body.)3.2 There cannot be a difference in the practitioner's intention, will and discipline as they manifest in professional or private circumstances.
(The Grinberg Method perceives people as a whole; the sum of all that they are, do and live. As it is an approach to life, to be successfully practiced it would need to affect and manifest in the practitioner's conduct in any domain of their life.)3.3 The practitioner continuously learns and evolves to build and improve their knowledge, skills and abilities.
(The Grinberg Method aims to bring people closer to what is humanly possible for them. For a practitioner, who needs to constantly remain a personal example of this, there is never a point in which one could say that they have "arrived" and there is nothing more to learn.)3.4 The practitioner needs to choose to adopt the attitude of a student who is constantly ready to learn.
(In a teaching method about development and change, self-importance and self-righteousness will be the major obstacles to learning.)3.5 The practitioner cannot have any reticence towards any client with whom they work.
(For personal development and growth one needs to experience one's limits and go beyond them. This requires both practitioner and client to apply all that they are at any given moment.)3.6 The context of professional ethics should constantly be in the practitioner's attention and conduct.
(As individuals who practice the discipline of attention, practitioners cannot be followers or believers. In order to be responsible for their conduct they need to pay attention, think, choose and embody the principles that stand behind their actions.)Originally adopted May-1996, amended March-2011