Sacred Calling, Secular Accountability

Increasingly, counselors are practicing spiritual or complementary interventions. In balance, how counselors use such interventions is under closer examination by law. This effort to protect clients is embedded in ethical and legal principles, but rarely addressed in the mental health literature. This book will fill that gap by offering a clear understanding of the context of the law. Detailed case studies are given in each chapter as a centerpiece to the understanding, interpretation, and application of the laws. The author, with his unique qualifications in legal and spiritual areas, pays critical attention to the issues of culture throughout this resource that includes handy appendices of a legal glossary, abbreviations, literature review, and an exercise on how to find the law.

Chapter 1 Jurisprudence and Spiritual or Complementary Interventions; Chapter 2 Criminal Charges; Chapter 3 Civil Liabilities; Chapter 4 Licensure and Insurance Issues; Chapter 5 Ethical Implications and Ethical Models for the New Millennium; Chapter 6 Religious Affiliation, "Cults," Coercion, and Counseling; Chapter 7 The "Cultural Defense," Liability in School Counseling, and Vicarious Liability for Social Work Schools; Chapter 8 A Brief Afterword;