Engaging in ethical, effective treatment is a keystone of professional practice. For example, the ACA directs its members to devise treatment plans that offer reasonable promise of success. In support of this principle, other organizations have directed practitioners to continue to seek out on-going training and supervision as a means of maintaining and upgrading competence. For example, social workers are directed as follows:
[to] strive to become and remain proficient in professional prac- tice and the performance of professional functions. Social workers should critically examine and keep current with emerging knowledge relevant to social work. Social workers should routinely review the professional literature and participate in continuing education rel- evant to social work practice and social work ethics.
Similarly, psychologists are ethically mandated to maintain competence by undertaking “ongoing efforts to develop and maintain their competence”.
While it is notable that our professional organizations recognize the need for the maintenance of a practitioner’s knowledge and skill as foun- dational to competent service, it is equally important that we recognize the fundamental need and value of maintaining a practitioner’s physical and psycho-emotional well-being as equally foundational to competent service. For example, the ACA not only calls for its members to maintain knowledge of best practice and to devise treatment plans that offer a rea- sonable promise of success but calls for its members to do so in concert with their clients