COUNSELLING AND LOCAL CHURCH

Counseling within the context of a local church

Counseling within the context of a Local Church

Counseling at local church at times encounters unsure moral or ethical matters. The counselor may recognize such an issue as he or she listens to a client's story. Or a client who is laboring with guilt concerning a moral difficulty may request counseling. The difficulty increases if the local church is seen as one of prophetically proclaiming the reality in the community. The church is no longer a community of authority, but a voluntary accumulating where not everyone likes to be recalled of their lesson dilemmas (Davaney, 1997, 26).

The church is guarded by love and courtesy for the community. In this essay, issues of sex ethics are utilized to show the challenge faced by counselor and counselee alike in perceptive right conduct when there is uncertainty and contradiction in church and society as to what is agreeable. Noting the need for ethical foundations to undergird pastoral care, the term paper then examines some likely causes, drawing first on the work of Charles Gerkin and secondly on feminist perspectives. The community-based contextual approach offered by these causes proposes a way to evolve Christian community norms. It is significant to note that numerous examples of lesson adversity, guilt and uncertainty that may emerge in counseling have little to do with ethical complexities. 'Moral' problems experienced by a counselee may well be due to authentic guilt (requiring forgiveness, absolution and healing), unsuitable or neurotic guilt, confused or underdeveloped conscience, or some other adversity. The present discussion, however, is worried with positions where lesson and ethical debate as such has an authentic bearing on the pastoral situation (Cahill, 1995, 35).

In all professional matters, the Christian counsellor shall maintain practices that will protect the public and advance the profession. Counsellors shall not overstate their levels of competence or professional qualifications, nor shall they allow misrepresentation of a counsellor's qualifications or affiliation. They shall offer only truthful statements of expertise and realistic expectations of counselling outcomes. Counsellors must correct others who represent any counsellor's professional qualifications or services in a manner incompatible with these guidelines.

Counsellors shall not use their knowledge or professional association to secure unfair personal advantage, nor shall they knowingly permit their services to be used by others for purposes inconsistent with the ethical standards of the Association Communication of Membership of Christian Counsellors Association Of Australia Code Of Ethics (CCAA) should not express or imply that membership confers special status, expertise, or extraordinary competence in counselling. Similarly, counsellors do not express or imply that other counsellors not in the Christian Counsellors Association Of Australia Code Of Ethics (CCAA) are less competent or less ethical because of their lack of association. Counsellors must not use their affiliation with the Association for purposes that are not consistent with the stated purposes of the Association.

The recognised categories of membership in the CCAA are: Clinical Members, Graduate Members and ...