Prompt:
For this final discussion forum, you will have an opportunity to reflect on a topic discussed throughout this semester. Take a moment to review the various topics covered since the start of the class. Select one topic that most interest you.
Cover the following items in your initial post:
- Select and state the topic
- Discuss your knowledge check results. (ex: how much did you know about this topic? Was your prior knowledge misinformed? What did you learn about this topic?)
- Discuss how the course content has informed your knowledge of the topic (What did you learn?)
Chapter 3 Controversies Regarding Integrating Personal Values With a Professional Identity
Counselors must respect the values of their clients and have the ability to work with a range of clients with diverse worldviews and values. Your clients have the right to live by their personal values, even if those values conflict with your own. Wise and her colleagues (2015) state: “Ultimately, all trainees (and trainers) must develop the cognitive complexity and flexibility to hold their own personal beliefs in a way that allows them to be able to serve a diverse clientele in a beneficial, nonharmful manner” (p. 265). Sells and Hagedorn (2016) suggest that it is possible for students to integrate their personal values and religious identity with a new professional identity. This can be done by introducing a student who is struggling with a value conflict to a mentor who is a faculty member or a working professional who shares common values with the student and who is able to integrate personal values with ethical practice. The mentor can demonstrate to students how they can embrace religious faith and professional ethical obligations at the same time. Students also have some responsibility, in collaboration with faculty and supervisors, to find a suitable values mentor when they are struggling with a conflict between their personal and professional values.
The religious values of some counselors are in conflict with the affirmation of diverse sexual orientations, and some counseling programs are in institutions that disaffirm or disallow diverse sexual orientations. Smith and Okech (2016a) asked: “How does CACREP simultaneously honor both religious diversity and sexual orientation diversity in its accrediting practices” (p. 252)? Smith and Okech (2016a) identified 15 CACREP-accredited programs in faith-based institutions that have anti-LGBT codes or disaffirming codes of conduct and doctrinal statements that are informed by a conservative Christian religious doctrine. Clearly, the mission and policies of these institutions are in conflict with the ACA’s (2014) nondiscrimination standard. Counseling students in such programs may feel justified in exposing their clients to their personal religious beliefs regarding sexual morality and what kind of relationships are acceptable, because those beliefs are espoused by their faculty and enshrined in institutional policy. However, ethical practice requires that counselors refrain from imposing their personal religious beliefs on clients.
Smith and Okech (2016a) also identified 17 CACREP-accredited programs in faith-based institutions with LGBT-affirming codes or nondiscriminatory policies and codes of conduct. The differences between programs with disaffirming codes of conduct and programs that affirm sexual diversity demonstrates a need for increased dialogue in the counseling profession and a “call upon counselor educators to develop empirically informed best practice to guide faculty who must navigate such discriminatory institutional norms” (p. 258). Smith and Okech (2016b) contend that “it is time for the field to provide clarification on the systemic issue of how to negotiate accreditation practices related to religious institutions that disaffirm or disallow LGB-identified students and faculty” (p. 283). It should be noted that institutions that are not LGBTQ-affirming, regardless of the mission or policies of the institution, must abide by all CACREP standards.
Hancock (2014) asserts that it is the mission of education and training institutions to provide an environment in which students can acquire the attitudes, knowledge, and skills essential for providing diversity-competent mental health services. Counselors’ personal beliefs and values must not supersede professional mandates to serve the best interests of their clients.