Dual relationships are proscribed in the standards of ethical conduct for most professional groups that provide counseling or psychotherapy. Dual relationships are thought to be unethical because they cloud the clinical judgment of the counselor and may present conflicts of interest that prevent thecounseling relationship from being beneficial. Pastors frequently provide counseling for troubled persons or families, yet they often maintain other roles and relationships with these persons and families. Thisarticle addresses the issueof the inevitability of dualrelationships in pastoral counseling. Courses of action for handling dual relationships in pastoral counseling areidentified.
Most counseling professionals voluntarily adhere to ethical standards that caution against entering into counseling relationships with clients that might constitute dual relationships, which are seen as a violation of ethical, legal, and clinical standards (Herlihy & Corey, 1992;Pope, 1985). Dual relationships can take many forms but are essentially those in which the counselor and client also have another personal relationship together that is composed of roles such as teacher and student, employer and employee, or mutual relatives or close friends (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 1993). It is believed that these other roles are incompatible with the counseling relationship because they impair the counselor's clinical judgment and objectivity, increase the risk of exploitation of the client, and conflict with the interests of the client (