Musings on Faith and Psychology

Thinking a bit more about confidentiality and the issues that arise in a Masters of Counseling program. Dingle’s Sister raised a couple of interesting points in “her” earlier comments to a post I made about confidentiality. She suggested that we have a conflict:

Are we here to (a) grant degrees or (b) graduate healthy, transparent, wise counselors?

To be fair, there is a bit of a conflict. We are all about graduating authentic, transparent, humble ministers/counselors of the Gospel. But we also want to stay in business and that requires enough bodies to keep the place going. Some institutions have decided they are merely academic centers of learning—paying no attention to character. This is a weak and indefensible argument, even in secular settings. I can’t put my hands on the article, but I read where a university was successfully sued for graduating someone in grad psych program that was clearly unhealthy. The courts found that the school could have or should have known that the person would likely harm another.

At Biblical, we clearly state that we are about spiritual growth and character building along with skill and knowledge acquisition. Our tight community encourages transparency and application of biblical counseling principles to self prior to using them on others. We want students AND professors to be vulnerable with each other. (Obviously, there are limits to this at Biblical and also out in the real world, but I’ll save that for another post.) We do evaluate character and maturity upon admission and throughout the program.

This is why we are developing our in-house counseling center. We acknowledge and explore the limits of dual relationships (being counselor and professor/staff member) but do not shun them. Part of the Christian life is carrying each other’s burdens. We will walk with those who reveal their struggles with us. Yes, there may be times when we must sit down with students and help them explore whether this is the right time for them to be here. We do not want school to interfere with the work God may be calling them to (ministry to family members, attacking an addiction, etc.). And yes, we may have to ask some to leave. But we don’t do so just because we learn about an ongoing struggle with sin. That would mean Biblical must shut down. Contumacy, an old word used by Presbyterians when talking about excommunication, is probably the only reason we would ask someone to leave (not counting financial or academic reasons students must leave). If a student is unwilling to repent, is boldly hardhearted about their sin over a period of time, they might be asked to leave. Here’s an example: a few years ago, I had a student who engaged in flagrant, repeated plagiarism. At first, I assumed ignorance was the problem and educated the student regarding the problem of taking another’s words and passing them off as his own. When the problem continued and the student denied or made excuses but did not take responsibility, I was left with no choice but to end his education at Biblical.

Believe it or not, its not unusual for students to talk with us about their deepest struggles. I am always amazed at how many do in papers and in face to face conversations. While hypocrisacy is alive and well in all of us, I see many many transparent, struggling Christians who desire to have their lives transformed and are willing to be known in their struggles.

Its an honor to watch what the Lord is doing in each of their lives.  

Just got done talking with a colleague about how we will handle confidentiality in our about-to-be-launched pastoral counseling center for students in our Seminary. By the very nature that we are all employees of the Seminary, we will engage in dual relationships with our counselees. In professional ethics codes, dual relationships are frowned upon and those who engage in them must prove they are not harmful (guilty until proven innocent). In Christian communities, dual relationships are commonplace and even considered by many to be biblically authentic (The AACC Code discusses this: www.aacc.org).

In our case, we will be their teachers/advisors and their counselor. How will we handle it when someone tells us they are involved in activity that would be considered antithetical to being a wise counselor? Should we have the right to decide that a counseling student can no longer be in the program based on some disclosure they make in a counseling session? Here’s some of my thoughts on the matter.

1. Students are not required to come see us. If we give thorough informed consent about the possible implications of seeing us (normal possible breaches of confidentiality and possible side effects of dual relationships) and they still want to see us, they should expect us to be concerned about their disclosure of behavior not becoming of a healthy grad of the school. They should expect that we will continue to be concerned whether they see us further or not.

2. We will have to live with messiness. We learn things about another and don’t always get to know that it came to a good conclusion. We don’t always get to have a say in how it ends. I will always know of some who decide to present themselves as one thing to the public, but are quite the opposite in private. We can’t be in the business of forcing others to do the right thing.

3. We’d better be clear what might constitute egregious violations that require us to end a student’s pursuit of an education. Sinful behavior cannot be the line since that would end the Seminary’s existence. So, what is? That is the question we will have to answer prior to starting this center.

More thoughts on this later…