EthicsWalk addresses spiritual care as an ethical enterprise. It explores why relationships between spiritual care providers and those they serve need protection, and examines what that protection entails. PlainViews invites our readers to share their responses to each EthicsWalk column, which will be published in the following issue.

If you’d like to respond to EthicsWalk, please send a comment of no more than 100 words. You can use the e-form below (click on "hearing from you," link) or submit your commentary to the editors in the body of an e-mail (or as a Microsoft Word attachment) sent to Info@PlainViews.org. Please put the phrase “EthicsWalk” in your subject line.

We look forward to hearing from you.

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A Response for EthicsWalk:

Dear Ms. Underwood,

I have benefited from reading your column in PlainViews. I am in my first unit of CPE, and have quoted you in one of my verbatims. The subject of ethics is one very dear to my heart.

Thank you,

Laura Perra

 

Examining Our Own Limits

Establishing, tending, mending, navigating boundaries in the work of chaplaincy and spiritual care has been the focus of EthicsWalk the past nine months. Intentionality in the formation and maintenance of professional relationships is the crux of healthy boundaries. The healthy wholeness of the person(s) served is the focus.

One’s own soul and psyche are nurtured through mature relationships with colleagues, friends, family and religious community. They provide the bedrock on which professional care can be provided with joy and committed abandon. This is possible only when the relationship is intentional and centered on the other’s needs rather than one’s own.

Within the Christian tradition, Lent is a period of personal and communal reflection and, often, redirection. The self-examination Lent invites is not limited to Christianity (or to Lent!). The Days of Awe issue the same summons each autumn. Indeed, the discipline of every religious and spiritual tradition demands it. Whatever your tradition, this Lenten month discuss with a trusted colleague, mentoring, peer or CPE group these questions. Assess your understanding and practice of boundary issues as they apply to your work.

Questions:

How do you visualize a boundary (“limit”)?
      A brick blockade (impenetrable)?
      A picket fence (light shines through; can see other side)?
      A barrier to intimacy?
      A safe enclosure for intimacy?

Why are there limits on personal or professional behavior?
     From where do those limits come?
     Are limits external, internal, eternal, temporal?

Do the same limits apply to all people in the same situations?
      What might be the exceptions to general limits?
      How would you recognize those exceptions: for yourself, for another?

What common good might a limit promote?

     What harm might it obviate?

What is the reason for a particular limit set by your faith tradition?

     What would be consequences of its breach?

What is the reason for a particular limit set by your program or employer?

     What would be consequences of its breach?

What is the reason for a particular limit you have set?

     What would be consequences of its breach?

“Limits” may be transgressed in relation to those whom the chaplain or spiritual care provider serves. They also may be transgressed with colleagues. Both are betrayals of trust. The former is betrayal of the needs of those vulnerable within a situation of differentiated power. The latter is betrayal of the expectations of colleagues to treat each other with decency and respect.

In your discussion, share something you would not do in your work -- with those served or colleagues - - a boundary which for you is unconditional. What situation might challenge you to navigate this limit beyond your present practice? With whom would you discern the wisdom of the navigation?

This marks the last meditation on the issue of boundaries unless readers pose specific questions or requests that it be raised anew. Future columns will address confidentiality, conflict resolution, and whatever else strikes the fancy of readers or the writer. Please be forthcoming with your suggestions!

Anne Underwood has an undergraduate degree in religious studies, a master’s degree in rural sociology and a mid-life law degree obtained after working over a decade as a college administrator. She has mediated for the Maine family courts since 1983. Currently she serves as an advisor to the ethics commissions of ACPE, APC, the CCAR (Central Conference of American Rabbis), and NAJC, and consults with a variety of Protestant faith communities on issues of power, fair process, and congregational conflict management. Her articles on mediation and restorative justice have appeared in the ACPE News, The APC News and on the ACPE web site. Articles on clergy accountability and judicatory processes are published by the Alban Institute and The Journal on Religion and Abuse. A chapter, “Clergy Sexual Misconduct: A Justice Issue,” appears in Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love, Marvin Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith, editors, The Pilgrim Press, 2003.