New Concepts in the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics

Abstract

The 2014 revision of the ACA Code of Ethics (American Counseling Association [ACA], ) substantially raises the bar for the ethical practice of professional counselors. This article provides interviews with members of the ACA Ethics Revision Task Force that explore and clarify new imperatives in the areas of ethical decision making, professional values, managing and maintaining boundaries, technology (including social media), the nonimposition of counselor personal values, counselor education, legal issues, sliding scales, and fee splitting.

Trends related to ethics, technology, counselling and careers

“…The requirement to use an ethical decision-making model is new to the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics (Kaplan et al, 2017). The second paper on counselling ethics in this issue picks up on this trend and is to do with ethical decision-making models and their applicability for professional school counsellors.…”

“…Using a bird's-eye view, essentially, she is encouraging a systems view of ethical decision making. Compatible with her view of integrating multiple ethical decision-making models, members of the Ethics Revision Task Force, primarily responsible for the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics, have clarified that they strongly support the use of an ethical decision-making model but have chosen not to promote the use of any specific model because they found so many that were suitable (Kaplan et al, 2017).…”

Recognizing and Resolving Ethical Issues

“…Among those options is the methodology of relational ethics. The practice of relational ethics (Kaplan et al, 2017) offers family counselors an approach that involves the development of collective valuing and shared responsibility for ethical decisions among all family members (Gergen, 2015).…”

“…B. Hendricks et al, 2015;B. Hendricks, Bradley, Southern, Oliver, & Birdsall, 2011;Kaplan et al, 2017;Margolin et al, 2017;Shaw, 2015): (a) conceptualizing the family, (b) developing therapeutic goals with multiple stakeholders, (c) enacting informed consent, (d) maintaining confidentiality, (e) treating the family in the case of one (or more) members' refusal to participate, (f) handling relational issues in an individual context, (g) addressing family secrets, and (h) legitimizing cultural issues. The enactment and ramifications of these eight ethical issues for working specifically with stepfamilies are unaddressed and form the thesis of this article.…”

“…Moreover, counselors within areas of clinical specialization must determine how to apply the generic ethical guidelines toward the governance of their specific practices (Gergen, 2015). However, knowledge of ethical principles and self-awareness needs to be augmented by the consideration of appropriate ethical decision-making models that may support the counselor's best efforts (Kaplan et al, 2017). These responsibilities comprise as much of the professional role of the counselor as the delivery of effective therapeutic services.…”