Code OF Ethics

Comparison of AAC and AACC Codes of Ethics



Comparison of AAC and AACC Codes of Ethics

Introduction

The American Counseling Association (AAC) and American Association of Christian Counselors have been engaged in developing codes of ethics for professional counselors. AAC provides the standards for counselors of secular arena, while AACC is specific to the Christian counselors. Though the both codes provide ethical guidelines for the promotion of the counseling profession, there are significant similarities and differences in the two sets. In this paper, we compare and contrast the two codes of ethics.

Discussion

American Counseling Association works with the mission of improving life quality in the society. It provides the counselors of secular arena with the set of rules. Counselors by practicing these rules in their profession can respect for human dignity (ACA, 2005). This association focuses on the following 5 main points for writing the code of Ethics

a. To clarify the ethical responsibilities

b. To support the mission

c. To establish and define ethical expectations

d. To provide guidelines to develop methods of counseling which are based upon ethics

e. To provide a basis which help to deal with ethical complaints or inquiries.

ACA is relatively a simple document consisting of 8 sections. Under each heading, relevant ethical rules are explained.

American Association of Christian Counseling has a mission of improving the life quality by the improvement of Christian counseling. The main goals of AACC are to bring honor to Christ and His church. (AACC, 2004). It provides with standard rules, which are specific in Christian context. It focuses on biblical, ethical and legal points.

As AACC is concerned with the standard ethical rules specific to the Christian counseling, its document lay out is complex. It integrates Christianity concepts with legal and ethical rules. For many categories of counselors, a separate set of ethical guidelines is included. It also includes several Biblical foundations.

First of all, there is a difference in the format of both the codes. Secondly, the distribution of sections is different, as represented in table 1.

Table 1: Sections of AAC and AACC Code of Ethics

AAC Sections

AACC Sections

1. The counseling relationship

1. Do not harm

2. Confidentiality, Privileged Communication and Privacy

2.Competence in Christian counseling

3. Professional responsibility

3.Informed consent

4. Relationship with other professionals

4.Confidentiality, privacy

5.Evaluation, Assessment, and Interpretation

5.Ethical practice in Christian Counseling evaluation

6.Supervision, Training, and teaching

6.Ethical relations in professional work place

7.Research and Publication

7.Ethics in advertising and public relations

8.Resolving Ethical Issues

Comparison of Ethical Codes

In this section, we compare the three sections for both codes. We selected areas of Competence, Fees and relationship for comparison. For each of these areas, we discuss the similarities and differences found in the two sets.

Competence

How the two codes are similar

While discussing the competency issues and associated rules, The AACC and ACA ethics documents are pretty much similar. Both of the documents pose the essential requirement on the counselor, that only those persons can do counseling that are well qualified and experienced. An authorized credential body must look for maintain the quality of ...