Students gain a working knowledge of the Code of Ethics for various creative arts associations, including the North American Drama Therapy Association, the American Musical Therapy Association, and the American Art Therapy Association, as well as general standards for ethical practices in the psychotherapy and counseling fields. Key ethical or legal issues encountered drawn from readings are examined.
The course is an introductory survey course that acquaints the student with various laws and rules concerning ethics in creative therapies using case studies. It allows students to place a greater emphasis upon the type of creative arts therapy of their interest.
This course will cover ethics from a philosophical, Christian, and professional perspective. Students will learn the Code of Ethics for the NADTA, AMTA, AATA/ATCB.
This course will rest on the Biblical mandate for Christians to do the right thing. It will also examine the fact that man’s ethics differ from God’s ethics by looking at examples of Biblical characters who were caught between faith and national laws. The course will rest on the idea that God’s ways are higher than man’s ways and that we should trust God when faced with ethical situations or dilemmas.
The course will have greater implications for missionaries who ultimately find themselves at a crossroads between God’s law and the laws of the land. Missionaries will also be encouraged to do the ethical thing at all times as a means of witness to others.
Ethics are often relative to the context of a situation. Students will consider which ethics may be relative (such as touching a client who doesn’t mind being touched vs. not touching a client who does mind being touched) and those that are absolute. Contexts can determine or exist independently of professional ethics.
Different cultures and backgrounds may have differing ideas regarding what is ethical and what isn’t.
This course is practical in the sense that it deals with situations and dilemmas that come up in actual practice. Every therapeutic practitioner is expected to have some working knowledge of ethics, and therefore this course will introduce different theories of ethics which will appeal to the student practitioner, the missional Christian, and the apologist.
This course is experiential in that it will attempt to forecast likely experiences that the student will encounter in practice, thus allowing for application of concepts.
