Ethical Standards and Professional Conduct
This domain tests the conduct standards the Board enforces and the ones the profession expects. Minnesota frames many of these as rule-based violations, with the AAMFT Code as a useful but not controlling benchmark.
Core duties
- Informed consent at intake: nature and risks of therapy, alternatives, fees, records, confidentiality limits, supervisee status, and telehealth arrangements.
- Competence and referral: practice within training and experience; refer or obtain consultation when a case exceeds competence.
- Boundaries and multiple relationships: avoid relationships that risk exploitation or impaired judgment; sexual contact with a current client is prohibited outright and may also be criminal under Minnesota law.
- No exploitation: fees, bartering, gifts, and business dealings must not serve the therapist's interests at the client's expense.
- Accuracy in advertising and honest representation of credentials.
- Records, termination, and nonabandonment: document care, plan endings, and provide referrals.
Worked example
A client sends a social-media friend request. Accepting blurs the frame and risks confidentiality and self-disclosure problems. The sound response is to decline, explain the boundary at the next session (ideally the policy was covered at intake), and document the discussion and its clinical meaning.
Traps that cost marks
- Believing every dual relationship is automatically unethical; the standard is risk of exploitation or impaired judgment.
- Confusing a legal duty with an ethical one, or vice versa.
- Assuming confidentiality obligations end at the client's death; privilege generally survives and is asserted by the personal representative.
- Treating the AAMFT Code as the legal standard the Board applies.