Ethics for the Intuitive Practitioner
For more than a decade, Midge Murphy, JD, PhD (Energy Medicine), has been a tireless advocate for bringing ethics, legal issues, and risk management strategies into energy-based practices and in the training of energy healing practitioners.
Her groundbreaking book, Practice Energy Healing in Integrity: The Joy of Offering Your Gifts Legally & Ethically (2015-2020), along with the accompanying exam and certificate, is considered the gold standard in ethics, legal issues, and risk management strategies in the practice of energy healing methods.
Murphy is the first attorney to receive her PhD in energy medicine and as an energy healing practitioner herself, she understands both the law and the alternative healing arts. This allows her to lend her expertise as a bridge between the two worlds and to provide a well-balanced and needed perspective as the use of complementary and alternative methods by the public continues to grow.
“Whether an intuitive practitioner has a stand-alone practice or is working as a team member in an integrative practice, they must understand all of the legal risks,” Murphy states. Licensed practitioners must practice within their legally defined scope of practice.
She points out that non-licensed intuitive practitioners, who may hold a certification in their modality, must be careful not to be perceived as practicing medicine or another licensed healthcare profession without a license. Both licensed and non-licensed practitioners must operate within the current legal and regulatory framework that governs helping professionals.
Murphy’s orientation of ethics includes foundational ethical standards such as being client-centered, maintaining client confidentiality, developing a professional environment for structure and safety, obtaining informed consent, and disclosing risks and benefits.
However, it also includes recognizing the sacred or special relationship between practitioner and client. “When we frame our relationship with our clients as a sacred contract, we lay the foundation for ethical behavior. By incorporating the sacred into our practice, we embrace the expanded definition of ethics to include reverence for all life, which underlies all healing systems”, Murphy says.
This expanded therapeutic paradigm is based on honoring the interconnectedness of all life in all dimensions. Because energy-based practices access deeper levels of consciousness, she advises that practitioners should be mindful of their sacred contract with their clients and take care not to blur ethical lines. “We have a primary responsibility to not only being committed to ethical behavior but also to working with clients within the field of the heart and creating multi-levels of awareness with them,” Murphy says.
Midge Murphy can be contacted at https://www.midgemurphy.com/
Wendie Colter, MCWC, CMIP is the founder/CEO of The Practical Path, Inc. For information on The Practical Path® Medical Intuitive Training™ and the Medical Intuition for Healing Workshop™, please visit The Practical Path or call 877-433-6611.
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