Ray McKinnis

‘The first three to four months after he was born he was a girl. Then he became a boy,’ my mother revealed toward the end of her life. She was talking about my brother, Ralph, who was 1 year and 8 days older than I. It is the sad story behind this blog, ‘DO NO HARM’. Ralph was brilliant. An IQ measured above 150 in high school. (I don’t know exactly what it was because back in those days, it was believed that high school counselors shouldn’t reveal to parents or students their IQ test results.) For 30 years he tried to figure out who he was. Throughout junior high and high school he was interested in girls only to find out what they were like—how did they know how to dress, what where they interested in, what did they do, etc. It was his troubling secret. Clearly he had a male body—6 foot 5, broad shoulders, sang tenor in the church choir, shoe size 15. The only anomaly was he had no facial hair. He had the XY chromosomes.

Evidence-Based (EB) and Cognitive-Behavioral (CB) are two terms that have wormed their way into contemporary counseling jargon. Their major motivation is to help put counseling on a more firm=scientific base. They do have their merit. But they are completely incompatible with spirituality as I define it: spirituality essentially refers to that which is ultimately beyond—especially beyond evidence and cannot be captured with rational thinking. That, I believe, is the heart of the challenge we counselors face when want to include a spiritual dimension into our practice. And it faces all counselors when they counsel a client for whom spirituality is an important part of their lives.

After finishing my last blog in which I discussed how the metaphor we choose to guide our ethical thinking affects how we decide what to do, I was struck with an epiphany. Much became clear. Maybe I’m just a little slow and others already realized it, but I’m using the opportunity of this blog to think through some of the implications of this insight.

I was delighted to see Ryan Neace [ACA Blog ‘Prayer in Therapy an Ethical Primer] reply so carefully and thoughtfully to my proposition that prayer should never be used in therapy (unless it is in the context of a specific faith community). One of the opportunities of the ACA blog is to engage in dialogue with fellow counselors. Ryan’s response gives me an opportunity to understand another point of view and clarify further points I have not presented clearly enough.

No, Never. According to the ACA Code of Ethics, there are some activities a counselor must never engage in with a client—especially sexual activities. There are some activities that are allowed but only very carefully—such as dual relationships. And there are some activities that are required for being an effective counselor—such as caring and empathy.