American Counseling Association

Mission Statement

The ACA's brief mission statement underscores its commitment to respecting human diversity: to enhance the quality of life in society by promoting the development of professional counselors, advancing the counseling profession, and using the profession and practice of counseling to promote respect for human dignity and diversity.

Code of Ethics

Consistent with its mission statement, The ACA's code of ethics refers to the importance of respecting [Page 42]human diversity in virtually every major section of the code. Indeed, the preamble states that association members recognize societal diversity and support the individual's rights and development.

Under the section of the code titled “The Counseling Relationship,” ACA members are expected to strive to understand the diverse cultural backgrounds of the clients with whom they work and to develop a clear understanding of how the counselor's own cultural, ethnic, and racial identity influences his or her values and beliefs about the counseling process.

An emphasis on cultural competency extends to other areas of the ACA's code of ethics. In the process of diagnosing their clients, for example, counselors are expected to recognize cultural influences on the definition of clients' problems and consider socioeconomic and cultural experiences before arriving at diagnoses.

When it comes to testing, the ACA code warns that counselors should be cautious in administering tests among culturally diverse populations, whose socialized behavioral and cognitive patterns may fall outside the range of the test's applicability and validity. Furthermore, counselors are advised to observe caution in interpreting the data of populations that differ from the norm group on which the test was standardized and to remain forever cognizant of the possible impact of a range of factors (age, color, culture, etc.) on test administration and interpretation.

Counselor educators are also expected to introduce material related to human diversity into all courses and workshops that are designed to promote the development of professional counselors.

Multicultural Competencies

One of the 18 divisions of the ACA is the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD). Chartered in 1972, the AMCD was originally called the Association of Non-White Concerns in Personnel and Guidance. The AMCD endeavors to advance cultural, ethnic, and racial understanding to improve and maintain personal development.

In 1992, an article was simultaneously published in the Journal of Counseling and Development and the AMCD's Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development. The multicultural competencies that were outlined in that article have become part of the canon of the counseling literature. They are available from the ACA as three separate documents: “Cross-Cultural Competencies and Objectives,” “Operationalization of the Multicultural Counseling Competencies,” and “Dimensions of Personal Identity.”

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