Code of Ethics

The Board of LAACC has adopted the Code of Ethics of the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC). This Code is a comprehensive set of ethical guidelines for those of us practicing in the counseling professions in our state. We encourage and invite all LAACC members to read and adopt this well-written document. Below you will find the introduction and mission statement from the AACC Code of Ethics. The full code may be accessed on the internet at: http://aacc.net/about-us/code-of-ethics or a printed copy can be ordered from AACC if you are a member of that organization.

With the adoption of this Code we publicly present our ethics to our members in the state of Louisiana, as well as respectfully submit this document to the church and the helping professions, to the courts, legislatures, and licensure boards of America, to mental health and health-care organizations everywhere, and to the world-at-large.

Below you will find the introduction and mission statement from the AACC Code of Ethics.

AACC CODE OF ETHICS

Introduction and Mission

The Code is designed to assist AACC members to better serve their clients and congregants and to improve the work of Christian counseling worldwide. It will help achieve the primary goals of the AACC—to bring honor to Jesus Christ and his church, promote excellence in Christian counseling, and bring unity to Christian counselors.

A New Code for an Emerging Profession

The Code is a comprehensive, detailed, and integrative synthesis of biblical, clinical, systemic, ethical, and legal information. It was created this way because vaguely worded, content limited, and overly generalized codes are insufficient for the complexities of the modern, 21st-century counseling environment. A more comprehensive and behavior-specific ethical code is needed for Christian counselors (and all mental health and ministerial professions, we believe) because of:

(1) the mounting evidence of questionable and incompetent practices among Christian counselors, including increasing complaints of client-parishioner harm;

(2) the largely unprotected legal status of Christian counseling, including the increasing state scrutiny, excessive litigation, and unrelenting legalization of professional ethics; and more positively

(3) the vitality and growing maturity of Christian counseling—including its many theories and controversies—indicating the need for an overarching ethical-legal template to guide the development of biblical and empirically sound Christian counseling models.

This Code—beyond defining the boundaries of unethical practice—affirmatively educates counselors in the direction of becoming helpers of ethical excellence, capable of more consistently securing the best counseling outcomes. This Code shows four streams of influence. These include (1) the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) and historic orthodox Christian theology;** (2) accepted standards of counseling and clinical practice from Christian counseling and the established mental health disciplines; (3) codes of ethics from other Christian and mental health professions; and (4) current and developing standards derived from mental health and ministry-related law.

*The Board and officers of LAACC encourage you to familiarize yourself with the Code of Ethics and to strongly consider applying it to your professional practice as well as your personal life as a guide to ethical excellence.