Are Therapists Really Nonjudgmental?

[SandraJane]

Are Therapists Really Nonjudgmental?


When a therapist's religious and professional ethics are in conflict.


Published on February 18, 2012 by F. Diane Barth, LCSW in Off the Couch

http://my.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-couch/201202/are-therapists-really-nonjudgmental

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?action=post;board=231.0   Related article

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,110299.0.html   Related article

An article in the New York Times last week asks what a therapist or counselor should do when their moral or religious beliefs conflict with a client's lifestyle. Underlying the question is another: are therapists supposed to be nonjudgmental?

According to the article's author, Mark Oppenheimer, a student working on a graduate degree in counseling was assigned a client whose lifestyle was not acceptable in her religion. She requested that the client be referred to another counselor rather than run the danger of having to affirm his lifestyle. The student was an evangelical Christian. The client was homosexual.