Being forced to violate my conscience in my career

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The ethical questions in being a counselor/therapist/psychologist are pretty common and it’s partially the reason a large pool of them are employed as ‘Christian counselors’ or something similar. Things like alcoholism or excess gambling or excess spending aren’t very controversial but since mainstream society tends to favor denial on any of the sexual issues and how they have changed our world, it puts a distance between patients and professionals with significantly different world views. You can still empathize and give constructive answers but you might consider in the future what kind of exact job you want to be in so that you can help people in the best capacity.

Peace.
 
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I understand your trepidation; I experienced these concerns as well as I began my programs (I’m a psychologist). But, as I learned, the counselor’s opinion and values don’t actually present themselves in therapy (or they shouldn’t, anyway). You support and validate the PERSON. You will have classes on ethics, legalities, and learn how to engage your patients from an empathic but impartial perspective. Every counseling is about the patient/client ONLY. We are there to bear witness to their pain and help them have a better quality of life. There isn’t the giving of advice as much as offering nonjudgmental support and help them to understand behavioural patterns, toxic thoughts, etc. Most of my patients find healing through just having nonjudgmental validation of them as a person with inherent value.

I applaud anyone who devotes themselves in service to others. Counseling is exhausting, draining work. It’s also deeply rewarding, but the balance of exhaustion and reward isn’t always in balance. One really has to have the ability to BE PRESENT in EVERY session. Yeah, I’ve seen nine patients in a row and I’m tired to actively listening, but that tenth clinical hour is a critical to the patient and I HAVE to be as present in hour ten as I am in hour one. And then you have hours of paperwork and clinical notes to produce, but that’s another discussion altogether!

People have offered you great advice and resources to contact. If you’re interested in some pre-grad school research, I can recommend some books that had major impact upon my professional perspective.
–Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers
–The Body Remembers I & II by Babette Rothschild
–The Art of Integrative Counseling by Gerald Corey

I wish you well, whatever you decide. Please let me know if I can help you any further.
 
@NevermoreLenore Thank you for your very thorough and helpful advice. I will keep in mind what you have said.
 
@Thorolfr It is not a mere matter of opinion or perspective that homosexual lifestyles cause harm to society and to the human person, it is an objective fact. There is nothing objectively or inherently evil about practicing Islam (as far as I’m aware of), nor does its practice pathologize society in any way. Different does not necessarily mean evil in this regard.

How am I supposed to care for the well-being of my clients if I am obliged to remain silent while they choose lifestyles that harm their mental, physical, and spiritual health? Counseling is about caring for the whole person. (Cura Personalis as the Jesuits like to call it.) It is like seeing a blind person wandering near a cliff and not saying anything because I’m afraid of seeming “pushy” or “imposing my beliefs”.
 
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Mental, physical and spiritual health are not all compromised in same sex relationships
 
nat1234 said:
@Thorolfr It is not a mere matter of opinion or perspective that homosexual lifestyles cause harm to society and to the human person, it is an objective fact…

How am I supposed to care for the well-being of my clients if I am obliged to remain silent while they choose lifestyles that harm their mental, physical, and spiritual health? Counseling is about caring for the whole person. (Cura Personalis as the Jesuits like to call it).
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Unless you advertise yourself as a Christian counselor of some sort so that your patients know what to expect, the approach you’re describing won’t be well received. And I don’t know how you could demonstrate that being in a same-sex relationship is harming the mental, physical and spiritual health of a particular patient unless they tell you something to that effect.

I know gay men who, when it comes to issues concerning their sexuality, are in perfectly good mental, physical and spiritual health. They have, or if retired had, successful careers, exercise regularly and are members of various churches.(I myself attend a mainline Protestant church with my partner). If they go to counseling, it’s for some other reason. For some in their 70s or 80s, they might seek counseling because their partner of 30 years passed away and they’re grieving over that. In my case, my ADHD was having an increasingly negative impact on my relationship with my long-time partner, and I sought out counseling to address that problem (I would have had the same problem if I had been married to a woman).
 
I won’t work a job that requires me to go to work on Sunday, because I’ve tried that before and I cut it very close to missing Mass. If it’s something that goes against your conscience, don’t do it, or at least Express reservations. In the United States, we’re supposed to have laws that protect our consciences, but you’d be surprised how much they are not enforced. I’m just speaking as an American, for people from different countries, I don’t have a clue.
 
I am not going to try and join in the conversation about what the OP should or should not do in pursuing this particular career. However, I would say that as society degenerates further and further, becoming more secular and farther removed from God, there are going to be some occupations or specialties that it would be very difficult for a Catholic to work in. Where medicine is concerned, it may well be that the only acceptable specialties for a Catholic (unless they were willing to take on the heroic task of specifically refusing to prescribe contraceptives, do sterilizations, or perform or lend support to abortions, which would close a lot of employment opportunities) are those that have absolutely no relation to morality or life issues — opthalmology, podiatry, orthopedics, EENT, and so on. As far as counseling is concerned, I wonder if any of the faithful, orthodox Catholic colleges — Ave Maria, Steubenville, et al — have programs of study in this. If they don’t, somebody should start one.
 
The problem would possibly be licensing after completion of a program.
 
JMMJ said:
The problem would possibly be licensing after completion of a program.
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In thinking of professed Christians who have an orthodoxy of faith and doctrine that is not up for debate or compromise, I thought of this place, and wondered if they offer counseling degrees. They do.



I’m not recommending this as something any faithful Catholic could pursue, for obvious reasons, but it does go to show you what is possible within the confines of a traditional Christian faith environment. Is there such a thing as “Catholic counseling” with a similar adherence to the Catholic deposit of faith and morality?

As those of us orthodox in the Faith work to restore the Church (“repair My Church which is in ruins”) in fidelity to the magisterium, this is something those who are called and qualified to do so, might consider.
 
JMMJ said:
The problem would possibly be licensing after completion of a program.
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It is essential to graduate from a CACREP accredited university for national and state certifications.
 
There are state regulations on who can advertise as a counsellor. Education requirements for 90% of counselling jobs require at minimum an MS or MA, preferably a PsyD or PhD from a CACREP accredited program. Most patients/clients will want you to take insurance, and there are strict policies and licensures required by all insurance companies. It really depends on the end goal, but to be a competent therapist, a graduate program is essential.
 
nat1234 said:
It is not a mere matter of opinion or perspective that homosexual lifestyles cause harm to society and to the human person, it is an objective fact. There is nothing objectively or inherently evil about practicing Islam (as far as I’m aware of), nor does its practice pathologize society in any way. Different does not necessarily mean evil in this regard.

How am I supposed to care for the well-being of my clients if I am obliged to remain silent while they choose lifestyles that harm their mental, physical, and spiritual health?
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Honestly, it sounds like you have some particular hang ups about homosexuality. Surely a number of other issues that have been brought up have an impact on society as well as the well being of the person engaging in the behavior, but you have glossed over them and keep singling out homosexuality. Just an observation, but perhaps something you might want to address in therapy.

I knew a homosexual couple who had been together 40 years, both Catholic, active in the Church. One worked for a Catholic Publishing company as an editor, the other served in the diocese and played the organ for his parish and other diocesan events. They have both passed away, of not AIDs related illness.

I think you might have found your feelings about homosexuality a hard sell on them. One of them also served in the military in active service. Again, might be hard to convince him he was a danger to society as he put his life on the line for his country.

When I was employed by Catholic Charities I had coworkers who were openly gay. That was 35 years ago. We all worked together and did our jobs without singling out any one person or group as sinners among us.

If you are planning to go into counseling, you must be prepared and willing to work with all sorts of people. If you feel that is against your conscience, perhaps another career would be better for you, but no matter where you go or what you do, you will have to come to terms with humanity and all it’s many frailties.
 
nat1234 said:
Well, at least I would be able to tell someone that alcoholism is wrong and harmful without gaining too much push-back. Our society generally accepts the idea that alcoholism is undesirable and has the potential to harm oneself and others. If you say the same about homosexuality, that it has the ability to harm people and ruin lives, especially in a professional environment, prepare to be reprimanded, perhaps fired, and deemed a bigoted homophobe.
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So, in other words, it’s the behavior, not the status of homosexuality.

If somebody is engaging in high-risk behavior, I’d assume you’d be able to objectively point out the risks of that.

Just like a heterosexual engaging in high-risk behavior.
 
Calliope said:
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nat1234:
It is not a mere matter of opinion or perspective that homosexual lifestyles cause harm to society and to the human person, it is an objective fact. There is nothing objectively or inherently evil about practicing Islam (as far as I’m aware of), nor does its practice pathologize society in any way. Different does not necessarily mean evil in this regard.

How am I supposed to care for the well-being of my clients if I am obliged to remain silent while they choose lifestyles that harm their mental, physical, and spiritual health?
Click to expand...
Honestly, it sounds like you have some particular hang ups about homosexuality. Surely a number of other issues that have been brought up have an impact on society as well as the well being of the person engaging in the behavior, but you have glossed over them and keep singling out homosexuality. Just an observation, but perhaps something you might want to address in therapy.

I knew a homosexual couple who had been together 40 years, both Catholic, active in the Church. One worked for a Catholic Publishing company as an editor, the other served in the diocese and played the organ for his parish and other diocesan events. They have both passed away, of not AIDs related illness.

I think you might have found your feelings about homosexuality a hard sell on them. One of them also served in the military in active service. Again, might be hard to convince him he was a danger to society as he put his life on the line for his country.

When I was employed by Catholic Charities I had coworkers who were openly gay. That was 35 years ago. We all worked together and did our jobs without singling out any one person or group as sinners among us.

If you are planning to go into counseling, you must be prepared and willing to work with all sorts of people. If you feel that is against your conscience, perhaps another career would be better for you, but no matter where you go or what you do, you will have to come to terms with humanity and all it’s many frailties.
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This is a terrific post.

And certainly, if I were in a helping profession, I would not be comfortable telling someone that I’m trying to help that they’re a wicked evil sinner just because they don’t share my beliefs.

And I’ll add to that:

If you’re a professional, helping people, there’s no implication that you agree to or accept all of somebody’s beliefs.

I had to research this, for lawyers, and the lawyers’ ethical code says something like that. I’m sure for other professions it’s similar.

So if someone is a homosexual, and you’re helping that person relative to something else, that’s fine, even if you think that person’s a sinner.
 
I’ve been to a couple of therapists. One was terrible. He honestly said ‘So why is that a big deal’ to things that were really causing me alot of stress. That really made me feel worse. I walked out on him.

The second time I needed help I had heard some stories from friends where they felt a counselor was edging them to do things that they had a moral issue with (suggesting to end a marriage. I can’t say one way or the other, it’s just what my friend reported, so it could very much be a misunderstanding). I was in a very bad way and very vulnerable, and after my first experience I didn’t want something that would crater me.

So when I went in I kind of ‘therapist shopped’ and looked for one who was Catholic, and when I went in I stated my boundaries right from the get go. She accepted that and was great.

I dont’ know if that’s considered a good thing or not, but it worked for me. I honestly wonder if there are different paths of education for therapists. ‘I want to help Christian women with this worldview’ might really shape how you deal with therapy. Similarly, ‘I want to help the LGBTQ community’ might set up a completely different set of education and expectations. I think both are legit; and IMHO honorable.
 
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