In an interview with National Public Radio, Gov. Bill Haslam said he’s seeking input from “a lot of folks” on whether a veto is warranted for HB1840, which declares therapists could reject clients when counseling them would run counter to the therapist’s principles.
After the interview was aired, Haslam got some input from the American Counseling Association, which opposes the bill and didn’t like what he had to say.
In the NPR interview, Haslam said he had boiled his thinking down to this central question: whether therapists could truly leave their values out of their work.
On one hand, he points out that the American Counseling Association “says you should always counsel from a valueless position. In other words, you don’t put your own values into the conversation; you’re there to help.”
But, he added, “I personally wonder … regardless of whether you’re a religious person or not, everybody comes into every conversation with a particular worldview and things that you believe are right or wrong. The question is can you counsel from a totally non-value-based position?”
…Asked about the argument that therapists should have an obligation to serve everyone, Haslam said, “Lawyers don’t serve everyone. … Lawyers right now can say, ‘I’m not the person to help you on that issue; I don’t agree with what you’re trying to do’; and they can turn down that person and they can go somewhere else.”
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Note: The resulting ACA press release is below
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