Ethics Update: The Counselor's Survival Guide to Ethical Counseling in a Politicized Era

Course overview

The 2020 presidential election landed alongside a global pandemic and civil unrest connected to racial injustices, creating a trifecta of stress and potential trauma. The American Mental Health Counselors Associations 2020 Code of Ethics calls upon clinical mental health counselors (CMHCs) to maintain objectivity (I.A.1) to take care of our own mental health so that we can be centered for our clients (I.C.1.h) to understand the role of our beliefs, values, and biases in our clinical work while seeking to better understand our clients (I.C.1.m); and to refrain from discriminating against our clients for their political beliefs (I.C.2.c). This is particularly interesting given that the counseling profession is less politically diverse than the clients we serve, with only 15-to-25 % of counselors identifying as conservative. How do we handle situations in which our clients bring politics into the therapy room? How do CMHCs advocate for sociopolitical causes on one hand while remaining objective on the other? How do respond when our own colleagues, co-workers, friends, and family members view things differently than we do? Within the context of a society that is politically polarized, how do we maintain balance and self-care so that we can be an anchoring presence for our clients? Drawing from the presenter's research on the impact of political ideology on counseling practice, this training was designed to equip you with tools to address these challenges.