As a profession, psychological and school counselors not only disavow oppressive attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, but actively work to advocate for social justice and against oppression. As mandated by the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American School Counseling Association (ASCA) Code of Ethics, we seek to train students who will advocate for and positively embrace all demographic diversity. Thus, enrollment in the program is seen as a commitment to the process.

Standards for student and faculty behavior must exceed the idea of "non-discrimination." Both faculty and students of the Counseling Psychology and Counseling and Guidance Programs are expected to take active roles in stopping bigotry and combating racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, religious intolerance, and other forms of invidious prejudice. No behaviors that result in physical or psychological abuse, harassment, intimidation, or violence against persons or property will be tolerated.  

We understand that students will not enter the program free from bias and prejudice. Nevertheless, successful completion of the program requires a genuine desire to examine one's attitudes and values and to learn to work effectively with "cultural, individual, and role differences including those based on age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, and socioeconomic status" (APA Ethics Code, 2002, Principle E; ACA Code of Ethics, 1995, Section A.2.). Stated simply, being unwilling to examine the effects of one's attitudes and values on one's work is unacceptable.

Students are required to honor not merely the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics, but also to be familiar with and to abide by the various Guidelines published by the APA and ACA, which address issues of diversity including but not limited to the: Guidelines for Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients, the Multicultural Guidelines, and the Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Older Adults.  All of these guidelines can be found on the APA website (www.apa.org) and the ACA Website (www.counseling.org).  You can also access them at the  UMKC Counseling Psychology website (http://www.umkc.edu/education/divs/cpce/new/phd/phd).

The practice of counseling requires significant self-disclosure and personal introspection for the person receiving counseling. Counseling students must become comfortable working with the process of individual's self-disclosure and introspection. Therefore, it is an essential training component of the Counseling Psychology and Counseling and Guidance programs to provide assignments and classroom experiences that call for our students (i.e., counselors in training) to self-disclose and personally introspect about personal life experiences to an extent not expected in other academic disciplines. As such, the counseling psychology faculty is committed to and expects an atmosphere of respect and confidentiality among our students.

Please note that we require that our students be willing to engage in self-examination (i.e., to disclose personal information in an academic context), and to learn to interact in an ethical and facilitative manner with individuals who are both culturally similar as well as different from themselves, in terms of both demographics and values.
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(This statement has been adapted from the following Universities and/or Counseling Psychology Program Statements:  Auburn University, Miami University, the University of North Dakota, and University of Missouri - Columbia).