Transcript Teaching ethics for the constructivist counselor

TEACHING ETHICS
FOR THE
CONSTRUCTIVIST
COUNSELOR
DR.DONALD STRANO, SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY, PA
JAMIE BRANT, MA, KENT STATE UNIVERSITY, OH
Ethics and the Law
• Ward
v
Wilbanks:
• Ward was enrolled at Eastern Michigan University
(EMU) Counseling Program
• Refused to see a client, during practicum, on the
basis of sexual orientation, which conflicted with
biblical teachings and personal values/beliefs
• Ward was offered a remediation plan to assist
counseling clients with differing values from her
own, she refused
Kaplan, D. (2014). Ethical implications of a critical legal case for the counseling profession: Ward v. Wilbanks. Journal of Counseling and Development, vol. 92. doi:
10.1002/j.1556-6676.2014.00140.x
Ethics and the Law
• Keeton v
Anderson – Wiley:
• Keeton was enrolled at Augusta State University
(ASU) Counseling Program
• Repeatedly made statements that she “condemns
homosexuality” (Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, 2010, p.
3)
• In response to these statements, faculty, concerned
that Keeton may not be able to separate her
personal values and beliefs from her counseling
responsibilities, placed Keeton on a remediation
term
• Keeton refused to comply with portions of the
remediation plan, which resulted in dismissal from
the counseling program
Herlihy, B., Herman, M., & Greden, L. (2014). Legal and ethical implications of using religious beliefs as the basis for refusing to counsel certain clients. Journal of
Counseling & Development, vol. 92. doi: 10. 1002/j.1556-6676.2014.00142.x
WHAT IS THE IMPACT:
• ACA 2005 Ethical Standards stated:
“ACA Code of Ethics recognizes that personal and moral beliefs may
prevent a counselor from being able to provide services to a client who
is interested in evaluating his end of life options, and states that if
such a conflict arises an “appropriate referral” should be made”
(Kaplan, 2014).
• ACA 2014 Ethical Standards:
“One of the major changes to the 2014 ethics code relative to
referral is the elimination of the standard that addressed end-of-life
care for terminally ill clients” – No longer allows exception for
discrimination cases.
(Martz & Kaplan, 2014)
“BRACKETING”
• Kaplan (2014) call for “bracketing” as a
means for counselors and counseling
students to separate personal values and
beliefs when encountering ethical
conflicts.
• “Bracketing revolves around the
counselor’s ability to take his or her
own personal values and set them aside –
suspend them, but not give them up or
change them. In essence, it is being
aware of yourself and the impact that
you have on that client in front of you”
(Martz & Kaplan, 2014).
Personal Values
and Beliefs
Does not align
with ACA 2014
Code of Ethics, or
at the time of
these cases, the
2005 Code of
Ethics
Putting counselor
needs first before
client needs
Inability to
separate personal
values and beliefs
Discrimination
against
classes/groups of
individuals based
on personal
values and beliefs
WHAT ARE
THE ISSUES?
What Does It Take to “Bracket?”
• Meaning Making
• How we know the persons epistemology
• How do people organize their
thinking, feeling, and relationships
• Evolutionary & transcendent
• Taking increasing responsibility for
the meaning we make
CONSTRUCTIVE
DEVELOPMENTAL
THEORY
• Cognitive structures
CATEGORIES
 The ability to construct a mental set, class or category
 Ordering the things of ones experience
 I can experience self as a class that has ongoing
properties?
 Do I have the ability to experience the self in relation
to a given category rather as the category itself?
 Can I consider the relationship between categories?
 Can I subordinate one category to the relationship
between categories?
 Can I simultaneously relate one category to another?
 Can I gather cross categorical constructions into a
complex system?
SUBJECT - OBJECT
Subject
 I am
 Lack awareness of
 Behave automatically in
relationship to
Object
 I do / We have
 We can reflect on, handle,
look at, perform operations
on, be responsible for, take
control of
 Depending on cognitive
complexity categories can be
experienced as subject or
object
KEGAN SUBJECT-OBJECT:
Incorporative
Balance
Imperial
Balance
InterPersonal
Balance
Institutional
Balance
1
2
3
4
What it Means to be a 3rd
Order Meaning Maker:
• Subject to personal relationships and
rules  Meaning “I AM my
relationships, Values and Beliefs. Even
though able to hold needs as object
• Unable to hold one’s own personal
values and beliefs as object (to view
them from outside themselves)and
instead will experience these as
subject(looking through their personal
and belief “lens” as a means to make
meaning of the world).
What it Means to be a 4th
Order Meaning Maker:
• Able to hold needs as object and their needs stay object
to their personal values and beliefs  Meaning these
individuals
HAVE
values and beliefs they can act on
in some way and perhaps set aside.
• This allows for self authoring, or an awareness that ones
self (including values and beliefs are chosen)
• These individuals would likely be better able to
“bracket” their personal values and beliefs, holding them
as object, as something they have not who they are.
• This may allow the individual to act on those beliefs
according to the environment and/or situation at hand 
Meaning they are able to look through the “lens” of
another individual in order to make meaning out of an
experience without their subjective “lens” of personal
beliefs and values to define the truth
Can Counselors hold personal
values and beliefs as object?
• Kegan: “At any given moment around one-half to
two-thirds of the adult population appear not
to have fully reached the fourth order of
consciousness.” (Kegan, 1994, pg.189-191
• Research on Piaget’s Model suggests similar
findings: even among college educated adults
50% may not use formal operational skills;
Only 35% of high school graduates obtain
formal operations.
• 75% of people who enter into counseling
programs are 3rd order meaning makers (Eriksen,
2008).
How Do We Promote Bracketing To
Counseling Students?
Kohlberg
•
As educators we need to be overt about
impacting and promoting cognitive abilities
in at least two areas:
1. Moral Reasoning
2. Meaning Making
• How to promote moral reasoning – according to
Kohlberg (1969), you do this by:
1. Exposing the person to others in
higher stages of moral reasoning and
disequilibrium.
2. Having them experience situations that
cause internal moral conflict.
ILT
KEGAN & LAHEY (2001)
⦿ 3 Phase Process:
– Uncover the competing
commitment
– Determine underlying
assumptions at the core
– Start the process of changing
behavior
Languaging Teams
⦿ Work in teams of 3 – 4
⦿ Reflect and answer question on your own then
share with your team:
- Share only what you want
As much or as little –
it is up to you
It is OK to share nothing
LISTENER ROLE
⦿ Listen and understand what is
expressed:
• Not a Counselor
• Not
what you think the other should focus on
• Not to teach the other anything
PHASE I
IDENTIFY THE
COMPETING COMMITMENT
ALL PEOPLE HAVE HAD THE EXPERIENCE OF
BEING IN A SITUATION WHERE THEY HAD
TO MAKE A DECISION BUT WEREN'T SURE
OF WHAT THEY SHOULD DO. WHAT SORTS
OF THINGS, IF THEY WERE TO HAPPEN
MORE FREQUENTLY, WOULD YOU
EXPERIENCE AS MORE SUPPORTIVE OF
YOUR DECISION MAKING PROCESS?
Gilligan
COMPLAINT:
• Well, if I felt more supported in making
decisions. I often feel like I am all on my
own but then I'm expected to make the right
decision, but I don't know what they expect.
WHAT COMMITMENT DOES THIS
COMPLAINT IMPLY?
⦿ We don't complain about things
we don't care about.
COLUMN 1:
I AM COMMITTED TO THE VALUE OR
IMPORTANCE OF:
⦿ Collaboration
⦿ Having clear expectations
⦿ Honesty
Underlying
Commitment
- Collaboration
- Having clear
expectations
- Honesty
COLUMN 2:
WHAT ARE YOU DOING, OR NOT
DOING, TO KEEP YOUR
COMMITMENT FROM BEING MORE
FULLY REALIZED?
DOING
• May be inadvertent
• Actions that get in your way
• Preventing you from
fulfilling the column 1
commitment
NOT DOING
•
•
•
•
•
Inaction
Passive
Avoiding
Ignoring
Dismissing
Underlying
Commitment
Collaboration
Having clear
expectations
Honesty
What I’m doing
or not doing
Assume all
responsibility
Don't ask for
help
Try to impress
others and not
look foolish or
like I don't
know the right
answer
IMAGINE DOING THE OPPOSITE
OF THE UNDERMINING BEHAVIOR
⦿ Do you feel
Discomfort
Worry
Vague fear
– Don’t just name the fear as something
you have
– Discover that you are actively
committed to preventing our fears
from happening
– Discover the other commitments you
hold behind the behaviors in column 2
– Frame the fear as an active
commitment to keep the thing you are
afraid of (arising from alternative
action) from happening
• This reflective process should leave
you a little unsettled (dissonance)
• Rather than having a noble ring to
it
• Stick with the problem so it
may solve you
• Good problems require us to
stretch & change
• Take a transformative rather
than corrective posture
• Honor your complexity –
constructing problems that
will transform you
BY ENGAGING IN THIS UNDERLYING
BEHAVIOR, WHAT WORRISOME OUTCOMES ARE
YOU COMMITTED TO PREVENTING?
⦿ This is the competing commitment
⦿ Reflects vulnerability
⦿ Should name a form of self protection you are
committed to – a kind of unhappiness you
particularly want to avoid.
COLUMN 3:
I AM COMMITTED TO
PREVENTING
⦿ Looking foolish
⦿ Others discovering that I might not be
very intelligent
⦿ Others thinking I am not up to the task
Underlying
Commitment
What I’m doing or
not doing
Competing
Commitment
Collaboration
Assume all
responsibility
Not looking
foolish
Having clear
expectations
Don't ask for
help
Honesty
Avoiding Others
thinking that I
Try to impress
might not be
others and not very intelligent
look foolish or
like I don't
Avoiding Others
know the right
thinking I am
answer
not up to the
task
⦿ Read the columns backwards 3 – 2 – 1
⦿ Columns 1 & 3 are countervailing
forces
• Keeping things in balance
• Dynamic equilibrium
⦿ Constructing the chart
externalizes the language
⦿ Creates a map
⦿ Holding it as object makes it
possible to act on it.
PHASE II
IDENTIFY THE BIG
ASSUMPTION
OUR STORIES CONSTRUCT OUR
REALITY
⦿ Often formed early in life
⦿ Remains unexamined
⦿ Accepted as true
⦿ Informs what we see
⦿ The map is not the territory
⦿ We don’t complain about things
we don’t care about
⦿ We don’t really have these
thoughts – they have us
⦿ Rather than learners solving
problems – the problems solve the
learners.
CREATE A SENTENCE STEM THAT
INVERTS THE COLUMN 3 COMPETING
COMMITMENT
⦿ I assume that if I did not appear to know
what to do
⦿ Then I would be seen as having no value to
others.
Underlying
Commitment
What I’m doing or
not doing
Competing
Commitment
Collaboration
Assume all
responsibility
Not looking
foolish
Having clear
expectations
Honesty
Big Assumption
If I don't
appear to know
what to do then
Don't ask for
Avoiding Others
I won't be of
help
thinking that I
any value to
might not be
others.
Try to impress
very intelligent
others and not
look foolish or
Avoiding Others
like I don't
thinking I am
know the right
not up to the
answer
task
PHASE III
QUESTION THE BIG
ASSUMPTION
STEP #1 NOTICE AND RECORD
⦿ What does or doesn't happen
because you believe the big
assumption to be true?
STEP #2 LOOK FOR CONTRARY
EVIDENCE
⦿ What would cause you to question
the validity of the big assumption?
STEP #3 EXPLORE THE HISTORY
⦿ How and when did the big
assumption develop?
STEP #4 TEST THE ASSUMPTION
⦿ Carefully and safely experiment behaving
differently.
STEP #5 EVALUATE THE
RESULTS
⦿ Possibly replace the big assumption
with a new worldview that more
accurately reflects your abilities.
Or - at least find more effective
ways to support competing commitments
without sabotaging other commitments.
DOUBLE DESCRIPTION
⦿ Challenging the big assumption
– Creates opportunities for contrasts and new
meaning
• Relative influence (unique outcomes)
• Collapsing time
• Raising dilemmas
• Creating experiments
– The contrast challenges constraint and creates
new information
QUESTIONS?