Full Statement

Ethics and Scope

Version 1.0. HaSpirala HaChaya is a developing framework, and this statement is expected to be revised as it develops.

1. Sexual boundaries

There is no sexual touch, and no genital touch, in any form of work described by this framework.

There is no erotic reciprocity. If erotic or loving feeling appears in the room, from either direction, it is not met with a matching expression, a disclosure that functions as an invitation, or any move toward mutuality.

No part of the work is directed at producing, amplifying or intensifying arousal. Where arousal appears, the clinical question is what it is and whether it can be stayed with, not how to increase it.

2. Eros is never a therapeutic aim

There is no hidden progression toward eros and no implicit sequence in which erotic experience is the destination. A person who never has an erotic experience in this work has not missed a stage.

3. Touch

The framework does not require touch. Its central distinctions can be worked with entirely without it.

Where touch is used, it depends on relevant training, applicable professional scope and credentialing, consent that is explicit and renewed as the work goes on, unhurried pacing, the freedom to change direction or stop at no cost, and compliance with local law and professional codes.

This statement does not establish permission for any practitioner to use touch. That question is answered by each practitioner's own licensing body, scope and jurisdiction.

4. Consent

Consent is ongoing and revocable. It is renewed as the work changes, not carried forward from an earlier agreement.

Consent given under strong activation, dependency or idealisation deserves particular care, and slowing down is the appropriate response to any uncertainty about it.

5. The practitioner's own experience

Practitioners have reactions. Attraction, arousal, fear, protectiveness and the wish to withdraw can all appear.

Where a practitioner's attraction or arousal becomes significant, the response is conservative. Narrow the work, reduce or stop touch, consult, and bring it to supervision. Countertransference may be clinically informative. It never establishes what the person's experience actually is.

If the frame cannot be reliably held, reducing or ending the work is the responsible course, not a failure.

6. Non-enactment without disappearing

Holding a boundary does not require becoming procedural, changing the subject, or creating distance that was not there a moment earlier.

Sometimes greater distance is exactly what responsibility requires, particularly where a practitioner cannot hold the space. Presence at any cost is not a new ideal. But where the frame can be held, an unexplained retreat after charged material appears can itself become what the person experiences, and the framework treats that as a clinical event rather than a neutral one.

7. Stated limits of the framework

HaSpirala HaChaya is not a validated treatment and does not claim an evidence base of its own.

It is not presented as a protocol for treating sexual dysfunction, and it is not a substitute for psychosexual assessment or treatment.

It is not a self-help method. It is not written for people to apply to themselves.

It is not a substitute for clinical training, licensure, supervision or a professional code of ethics.

The transferential and countertransferential organisation of erotic material is not developed here. It is a real and significant clinical dimension, and readers are referred to the relational and psychoanalytic literature that addresses it directly.

8. Out of scope for this framework

Acute psychiatric crisis, active suicidality, untreated psychosis, and situations requiring medical assessment are outside what this framework addresses and call for appropriate referral.