Full Statement

Ethics and Scope

Version 1.2. SPIRALAYA is a developing framework, and this statement is expected to be revised as it develops.

The work sometimes involves bodily, intimate, charged or erotic experience. Its limits therefore need to be stated explicitly, not assumed.

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 might be, what else it might be, and what is happening to presence, boundary and choice in relation to it, 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.

When eros appears, it enters the work as clinical material to be recognised, examined and approached with care, not as a goal.

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.

Consent is given to the specific touch, not to touch in general, and it is not carried forward from an earlier moment. The person remains free to say no, ask for less, change direction, stop or change their mind, including midway.

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.

A person can agree and then change their mind, say yes and then stop, say "I don't know", or ask for another way, all without cost to the therapeutic relationship.

Consent given under strong activation, dependency, idealisation, freeze or compliance deserves particular care. Where there is doubt about the capacity to choose, the work slows down. A "yes" is never used to override signs that choice may have narrowed.

No assessment of capacity overrides a 'no'. Presence, boundary and choice are used to protect agency, not reinterpret it.

5. The practitioner's own experience

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

Having a reaction is not a failure. Responsibility for what is done with it remains with the practitioner, and belongs first to reflection, consultation and supervision, not to the room as material for the person to hold.

Whenever the person's capacity is being read, the practitioner's is read too, and the check is not symmetrical: responsibility for the professional frame rests more heavily with the practitioner. Am I still present, holding the professional boundary, and clinically free to choose, or is my own fear, attraction, rescue impulse, avoidance or personal need beginning to organise the work?

Where a practitioner's attraction or arousal becomes significant, the response is conservative. Slow down, 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

SPIRALAYA 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 in full. It is a real and significant clinical dimension, and readers are referred to the relational, psychoanalytic and psychosexual 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.

Where there is significant dissociation, impaired reality testing, sustained traumatic overwhelm, or a substantial reduction in the person's ability to remain present, access a boundary, or choose, assessment and stabilisation are required before considering whether this work is appropriate.

This is not a complete contraindications list and does not replace full clinical assessment. It is a reminder that pacing alone is not enough. The level of stabilisation, the clinical frame, scope of practice, and the practitioner's capacity to hold what may emerge all need to be considered.

SPIRALAYA offers a way of thinking about particular moments within professional work that is already held in an appropriate frame.