CARAS supports the Kink Clinical Practice Guidelines project

For the past two years, a team has been working on creating updated, state-of-the-art clinical practice guidelines for therapists and counselors who are working with kink-involved clients.

By creating these practice guidelines, we hope to move the entire field of mental  health  further towards providing competent care to these people we care so much about. 

Practice guidelines are aspirational.  They are meant to articulate goals  and  standards that professionals can  strive for, to guide their own professional development and  to increase the quality of services they offer. 

We are conscious of the struggles around language, culture and diversity.  We want it to be clear that any practice guidelines we create are going to be limited by our particular cultural position, and  will miss  some important issues and  not apply easily, or sometimes at all, to some portions of the kink / BDSM communities or populations around the planet. 

But we feel this is a good  time to start  that  journey, to make space for those larger conversations, by first putting together and articulating to the best of our abilities a statement about compassionate, caring and competent therapy for kink-identified or BDSM-practicing people. 

You can check out the latest information on the project at www.kinkguidelines.com