Published April 2003
Jewish Association of Spiritual Healers
AN EXAMPLE MINIMUM CODE OF CONDUCT
FOR AN ORGANISATION
INTRODUCTION
The minimum standards set out in this Code of Conduct identify appropriate behaviour for healers and are intended to protect the public when they are given healing.
For the purpose of this Code of Conduct, healing has a specific definition involving the channeling of healing energy through the hands and/or with thought. It does not include massage, manipulation, the use of instruments, drugs or other remedies or the practice of clairvoyance or psychic surgery. It does include Distant or Absent Healing.
All healers are expected to behave appropriately, take responsibility for their own actions and uphold public confidence in healing.
An established set of procedures will be used whenever a complaint about a healer needs to be investigated, followed by the possibility of disciplinary action if this Code of Conduct has been breached. A healer who is the subject of a complaint must cooperate with the investigating body when called upon to do so, making a reasonable attempt to comply with the procedures and timescales required.
HEALERS MUST ALWAYS:
- Seek to improve their own knowledge and abilities.
- Be respectful and courteous to others.
- Take responsibility for the relationship they have with their patients and ensure that the trust placed in them is upheld.
- Recognise their own limitations and seek help from those with greater skills and experience where required.
- Maintain suitable working conditions where they give healing and ensure that these are safe and meet local authority regulations where required.
- Have a suitable standard of insurance protection to the level required by UK Healers.
- Produce details of their professional identification and qualification when asked by a patient.
- Ascertain, whenever necessary, that patients have sought medical advice and advising, where appropriate, that they do so.
- Be ready to cooperate with the medical profession
- Understand and act within the law as it relates to healing (for example, confidentiality; access to patients’ records and data protection; consent to treatment; child protection; sexually transmitted diseases; infectious diseases; dentistry; midwifery; the sale of remedies, herbs, medicines, supplements oils etc; and the treatment of animals).
HEALERS MUST NEVER:
- Use titles or descriptions for themselves or their treatment that may mislead the public.
- Give or offer any other form of treatment or therapy in association with healing unless they are qualified and insured to do so and without first making it clear to the patient and obtaining the patient’s specific consent.
- Give healing while medically or psychologically unfit to do so.
- Give healing as a student or probationer healer without being accompanied by a qualified healer unless specifically they have been authorised to do so by their supervising trainer and the patient agrees to receive healing from a healer under training.
- Falsify documents or patient’s notes.
- Abuse or exploit a patient sexually, emotionally or in any other way whatsoever.
- Give healing when it is not safe or appropriate for the patient or the healer.
- Discriminate on the grounds of gender, race, religion, political persuasion, age or disability.
BEFORE GIVING HEALING HEALERS MUST ALWAYS:
- Explain to a patient on a first visit how they give healing, how it is generally experienced and what the patient may expect with regard to consultations and fees.
- Make it clear to a patient with which UK Healers healing organisation(s) they are registered.
- Ensure that the owner of an animal has given written confirmation that he/she has consulted a veterinary surgeon before giving healing to an animal and obtained their consent.
HEALERS MUST NEVER:
- Guarantee, promise, claim or imply a cure.
WHILE GIVING HEALING HEALERS MUST ALWAYS:
- Behave with decorum and propriety, respecting the patient’s wishes and common decency as to where and how they may or may not be touched.
- Respect the views and beliefs of the patient.
- Act in an appropriate manner when attending a patient in hospital or a hospice (for example, obtaining the necessary permission, respecting the responsibility of the hospital or hospice for the patients in their care, carrying identification, giving healing without fuss or interruption to ward staff and other patients and not wearing clothing which gives the impression of being hospital staff).
- Have an additional adult present when giving healing to a child under 16.
HEALERS MUST NEVER:
- Give healing to patients without their specific consent.
- Ask a patient to remove any clothing other than spectacles, coat, shoes or other incidental items.
- Give a medical diagnosis to a patient.
- Advise or recommend that a patient undergo a particular form of treatment (like an operation or course of drugs) or interfere with the medical advice or treatment which the patient is receiving.
- Have a third party present (e.g. a student healer or member of the patient’s family) without the patient and healer’s specific consent.
AFTER GIVING HEALING HEALERS MUST ALWAYS:
- Keep clear notes of healing given to patients.
- Ensure that patient notes are kept in a safe place and retained for a minimum of seven years.
- Keep confidential any information received from a patient unless it is required by law or is contrary to public interest (for example, there is a risk that patients may cause harm to themselves, or to others, or have harm caused to them).
HEALERS MUST NEVER:
- Charge a fee for giving healing to patients with venereal disease, as it is illegal to make a charge in these circumstances.