When a Code of Ethics Becomes the Corruption It Was Designed to Prevent
The NBCC's Curious Accreditation Requirement
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Every day, prospective therapy clients scroll through listings on Psychology Today, Better Help, and individual therapists’ web pages across the internet, hoping to get a sense of whether or not they could trust the person that they are looking at to both help them manage their problems and be ethical.
A Code of Ethics is the kind of document used to establish core values and behavioral expectations, which will help clients have confidence that their practitioner will act with integrity.
But what happens when Codes of Ethics are used to create credentialing requirements under the guise of ethical directives?
Case in point, the National Board for Certified Counselors is a non-profit credentialing body that provides a national test counselors can take, which is supposed to show that said counselor is knowledgeable in all the things the national board is testing for. Yet a careful read of their standard turns up a very curious passage. Specifically this:
Counselors shall identify only earned educational degrees in counseling or another mental health discipline with regard to all counseling work, including publications. Identified degrees from programs in the United States must be from colleges and universities that were accredited at the time of graduation by one of the institutional accrediting organizations recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).
What Are Codes of Ethics For?
Professional codes of ethics are generally intended to serve as a foundational document that establishes the profession’s core values, ethical principles, and behavioral expectations, with the expectation that they can be used to guide decision-making. Ideally, this should build trust in the professions, mitigate legal risks, and create a shared image of good practice, fortifying consistent ethical conduct.
Most codes of ethics establish a baseline for ethical behavior in common situations seen in a profession, as an enforceable mechanism for situations where a practitioner isn’t reaching the baseline. The intent is to protect both the public and counselors.
Most of the NBCC’s code does a reasonable job of that, stipulating that ethical counselors protect confidentiality and obtain informed consent, while also stating that it would be unethical to have a physical relationship with a client or to exploit a client.
That is part of what makes the directive above stand out.
What Is the Curious Directive Doing?
The directive quoted above is different in that it is specifically calling for ideological purity through accreditation.
While the vast majority of parents and students think that accreditation is simply a certification of basic quality, that is not the case.
To break it down into simple terms, this is telling practitioners in the U.S. that to be considered ethical, they must have graduated from a university training program that was accredited by an accrediting body, which was recognized by the CHEA umbrella. Many folks don’t know that the only other umbrella is the U.S. Department of Education. So this bit of the NBCC Code of Ethics is specifically stipulating that the NBCC won’t accept graduates from programs only approved by the U.S. Government.
At the time the NBCC Code of Ethics was written, CHEA had adopted a DEI statement that included the following:
”Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are rooted in the cultural identity and lexicon of a civil society. However, in 2020, these words became aggressively polarizing among groups in America. Along with polarization, Americans either became fearful of their neighbors, separated from those who were different or they moved to a new awakening that there is much work to be done to reaffirm that America is indeed one nation, with liberty and justice for all.”
This is the ideological environment the Code was built to route practitioners through.
For a profession like counseling, which was already deeply entrenched in this same ideology, this was exactly the briar patch they were looking for.
For the largest CHEA-recognized counseling accreditor, the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), the NBCC’s Code of Ethics directive is exactly the kind of regulatory detail that both favors CACREP's ideological dogma and gives CACREP a perceived boost over its competitors.
The Corruption of Principles
At its heart, using a Code of Ethics to enforce things that are not ethical in nature, like mandating a preferred credentialing umbrella, affiliated institution, or bureaucratic pipeline, degrades the code’s authority. With a weakened authority, enforcing truly ethical breaches becomes a gamble as the moral weight of the document is diluted by insider handshakes.
If this directive is allowed to be included, what else will be allowed in? In this way, the document designed to prevent corruption becomes the vehicle for it, and a safeguarding tool is transformed into an instrument of coercion, and the less seriously anyone takes actual misconduct listed in its other directives.
What Can Be Done?
Practitioners specifically can speak out on these issues in professional conferences or incognito on podcasts if they fear reprisals.
Specifically, the public and practitioners alike should push to
Strip non-behavioral directives from any Code of Ethics.
Decouple ethics enforcement from which training program practitioners graduate from.
State legislators should reconsider membership in a compact that mandates ideological purity through hidden interlocking regulations.
Clients should educate themselves and choose their therapist very carefully.
People suffering from untreated mental illness, those depressed by the state of the world, or facing wrenching choices while trying to care for their families, deserve to know that practitioners are “ethical” because of how they behave and prioritize client care, not because their program’s accreditor ticked the right (or wrong) ideological box.
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About
Diogenes in Exile began after I returned to grad school to pursue a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Tennessee. What I found instead was a program saturated in Critical Theories ideology—where my Buddhist practice was treated as invalidating and where dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy was met with hostility. After witnessing how this ideology undermined both ethics and the foundations of good clinical practice, I made the difficult decision to walk away.
Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to exposing the ideological capture of psychology, higher education, and related institutions. My investigative writing has appeared in Real Clear Education, Heterodox STEM, Minding the Campus, The College Fix, and has been republished by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. I also speak and consult on policy reform to help rebuild public trust in once-respected professions.
Occasionally, I’m accused of being funny.
When I’m not writing or digging into documents, you’ll find me in the garden, making art, walking my dog,