Information about ethical and professional behavior and conduct by therapeutic counselors.
What Would an
Ethical Counselor Do?
We all believe we are ethical.
However, in 1985, I graduated with a masters degree in counseling without ever
taking a
class in the ethics of counseling. I went out in the world to counsel
in supervised agency settings. The policies and procedures of the agency governed much of my behavior, but I made
ethical mistakes without realizing it. I became friends with a man in one of my groups,
talked to him about buying a used car from him and we had dinner together one evening.
When I subsequently called him at home and his girlfriend answered, I was
confused by her critical comment to me, "You sure don't seem to understand ethical behavior!"
I had always considered myself to be
a very moral person--guided by what I believed was normal behavior among "good"
people. I drew on the example of my father, who was the owner of a drug
store in a small Nebraska village and worked in the store as the professional
pharmacist. In that capacity, he was both a source of advice and confidant
of many (most?) of the people in town. He certainly felt free to have
lunch or dinner with any one of his customers or to buy a car from one of them.
It was only later when I took my first course in counselor
ethics as part of my counselor continuing education. I discovered that counselors,
especially in an urban setting, are guided by
standards that the general public might consider strange and unreasonable. Basically, counselors are seen
to have an unequal relationship with the clients who have confided in them.
Counselors are therefore ethically prohibited from doing business with their clients in most
circumstances (because that creates a confusing "dual-relationship".)
It
helps that now Washington State counselors are required to take
ethics courses on a regular, recurring basis--but there are still counselors
making terrible mistakes in judgment.
I invite counselors and the public
to send examples of situations that would help counselors and clients to
better understand professional counseling boundaries. Perhaps other counselors will have
stories to share anonymously. Stories with good ethical content will be
presented on these pages.
