Clinical Ethics Consultation
Navigating Ethical Complexity in Clinical Practice
Clinical ethics consultation and support for psychotherapists and healthcare professionals.
Ethical tensions and challenges are inherent in clinical practice, which is complex, uncertain, and human.
Sometimes there will be a specific ethical question or problem. At other times, professionals are navigating organisational expectations and culture, or holding individual needs alongside policy and procedure. Sustaining thoughtful ethical reflection within complex systems - with both declared and implicit values - can be difficult.
What is clinical ethics consultation?
There may be a sense of unease about a situation, a decision that continues to feel discomforting, or the lingering impact of moral distress from previous clinical experiences. Clinical ethics is concerned with the experience of being a psychotherapist, doctor, or allied healthcare professional, recognising the emotional weight of moral responsibility, uncertainty, and sometimes isolation.
Clinical ethics support can contribute to organisational, team, and individual engagement with the moral dimensions of practice. It is grounded in values, relationships, uncertainty, and a deep understanding of the realities of healthcare and therapeutic work.
Whether teaching, consulting on a specific case, facilitating an ethics group, establishing and developing an ethics committee, debriefing after a painful experience, or collaborating on research - my approach offers a space to think carefully and rigorously about complex moral questions - and about the people who carry the weight of that complexity.
Why would someone seek clinical ethics support?
What prompts an individual professional, a clinical team, or an organisation to get in touch varies widely. Everyone works within a unique context that shapes - consciously and unconsciously - how ethical questions are perceived, understood, and lived in practice. My approach to clinical ethics support is always grounded in that context, attending to what lies beneath the surface as well as what is more readily visible.
I work alongside people to understand their practice, reflect on their clinical experience, and develop ethical awareness, confidence, competence, and capacity.
My work draws on many years of experience providing clinical ethics support in the NHS, psychotherapy, and hospice sectors, alongside my role as Emerita Professor of Bioethics and Clinical Ethics and training as a psychodynamic psychotherapist.
I work with individuals, teams, and organisations to respond thoughtfully to moral complexity and its impact in clinical practice.
Clinical ethics consultation could include:
Case consultation
Teaching at all levels, from trainees to senior clinicians and leaders
Clinical ethics group discussion and facilitation
Staff development
Writing and research for professional and public audiences
Policy development and review
Resources and materials for ethics education and practice
Ethics-focused action learning sets, individual debriefs, and supervision, including for research
Events and broadcasting as part of public engagement in ethics
Exploring clinical ethics consultation and support further
1. Get in touch
If you would like to discuss your interest in clinical ethics support, please contact me via email at deborah@deborahbowman.co.uk. I aim to respond within two working days.
2. A first conversation
We can arrange a confidential 30-minute online meeting or call. This is an opportunity to meet, talk through your context, and reflect together on how I might be able to support you.
3. Reaching an agreement
If you would like to proceed, I will suggest an approach for your specific circumstances, priorities, and the kind of clinical ethics support that would be most relevant and valuable.
My approach to clinical ethics may be valuable if you are:
Curious about your ethical awareness, perspectives, and experiences as a trainee or professional, and want space for reflection, discussion, or consultation
Carrying responsibility for ethically complex decisions, or living with ethical unease, uncertainty, or moral distress arising from your clinical training or work
Working within systems where values, policy, and human experience are in tension, and are interested in developing ethical thinking through teaching, groups and committees, research, events, or organisational development
People often have questions about clinical ethics support, particularly as it remains relatively uncommon in the UK. Please ask those questions as they arise.
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Clinical ethics consultation and related services are available to individual practitioners, teams, and organisations. You do not need to be facing a crisis or a specific dilemma for ethics support to be valuable. Finding space to identify the ethics of the everyday in clinical practice can be transformative.
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Individual consultations are confidential within professional and legal boundaries, and we can discuss this - along with any other aspect of the service that is important to you - when we speak.
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Clinical ethics consultation is not psychotherapy or clinical advice. It offers a reflective, structured space to think carefully about moral questions and the experience of clinical practice as a psychotherapist, doctor or other healthcare professional