Course Description
In this course, you will become familiar with the ethical principles and codes of conduct governing the counseling profession, as well as developing an understanding of legal statutes and regulations. You will compare and contrast the ethical codes of the American Counseling Association (ACA), American Association of Christian Counselors and the NAADAC Code for Addiction Counselors and use that to develop suggested organizational policies.
In addition to covering ethics of clinical counseling in general, this course will also focus on unique aspects of ethics for Christian counselors and addiction counselors. This course will also place a particular emphasis on counselor self-care and its relationship to avoiding potential ethical violations.
A major consideration in this course is no one starts out wanting to commit ethical violations, yet ethical violations frequently occur often due to a lack of adequate boundaries and self-care of counselors. Because of this, in this course you will reflect on your own self-care through a weekly journal, culminating in a final project of developing a comprehensive plan for counselor self-care and boundaries.
Prerequisites
Available to undergraduates with 90+ credits and a 3.5+ GPA.
Course Outcomes
After completing this course, you should be able to:
- Describe the ethical code of the American Counseling Association (ACA).
- Reflect on the ethics of handling values differences with clients and how that relates to informed consent particularly in Christian counseling contexts.
- Identify the most common ethical beliefs and behaviors of Christian counselors in order to inform your ethical practice.
- Reflecting on common ethical violations including sexual misconduct, violating confidentiality, improper boundaries, abuse of power, dual relationship violations.
- Recommending policies and training guidelines for pastoral counselors, lay counselors and peer support specialist for an organization.
- Reflect on your own self-care through a weekly journal, reflecting on the PROQL compassion fatigue assessment and culminating in a final project of developing a comprehensive plan for counselor self-care and boundaries.
- Compare and contrast the ethical codes of the American Counseling Association (ACA), American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC) and the NAADAC Code for Addiction Counselors, and using those to develop policy recommendations for organizations.
- Develop a counseling ethics and legal training manual for an organization covering key issues such as informed consent, confidentiality of patient records, dual relationships, boundaries, self-care, policies for staff support and ensuring compliance with the ethics codes of ACA, AACC and NAADAC.
Syllabus
Course Materials & Tuition
| Remley, T.P., & Herlihy, B.P. (2025). Ethical, legal, and professional issues in counseling (7th ed.). Pearson. Sanders, R. K. (Ed.). (2013). Christian Counseling Ethics: A Handbook for Psychologists, Therapists and Pastors (2nd edition). IVP Academic. Counselor Self-Care. Amer Counseling Assn. |
$89.99
$25.05 $38.95 |
| Tuition | $800.00 |
| Total Cost of Course | $953.99 |