For example, it seems to me it is inappropriate for a chaplain to use the words pastoral counseling unless he or she is certified as a pastoral counselor. Perhaps, perhaps not. Counseling is a word that carries many different connotations and meanings in the public sector, including the law. It seems to me that the response to the credentialing question needs to be specified directly out of our Standards. We need to go back and read those standards that describe the personal, theological and professional competencies that we have been judged to have by our peers through the national certification process.
Confidentiality puts boundaries around the sacred trust at the core of relationships.
The care with which we use language, verbal and written, not only defines our own self-identity, but more importantly, it reflects the trust that is given us in our profession by those to whom we minister. Confidentiality is the guarantor of that trust. When focusing on the art and the science of navigating the complexities of confidentiality in relationships, there seems to me to be at least three important considerations. First, there is what we might call a theology of reverence. Foundational to our Judeo-Christian tradition, there is the concept of imago Dei from Genesis 1.27.