Ethical Guidelines for InterSpiritual Mentors
(revised 6-28-23)
Purpose
The Ethical Guidelines for InterSpiritual Mentors have been developed for the purpose of establishing a shared commitment upon which InterSpiritual Mentors set the foundations of their work.
InterSpiritual Mentors are committed to fostering people’s relationship to spirituality and development of meaningful contemplative practices in a pluralistic context. They agree to respect the basic dignity and rights of their mentees and to hold a stance of compassionate neutrality and non-judgment. They are committed to acknowledging and respecting diversity and open to the many ways of sacred knowing from the world’s spiritual traditions.
These ethical guidelines are intended to assist InterSpiritual Mentors in protecting the individuals and groups with whom they work as well as to educate future students seeking certification in InterSpiritual Mentoring. They also serve to educate the general public regarding the ethics of the discipline. InterSpiritual mentors make a personal commitment to behave ethically and to assure the ethical behavior of their students, supervisees, and colleagues.
Following are the basic goals and ethical tenets of the work of the InterSpiritual Mentor.
Role of an InterSpiritual Mentor
The InterSpiritual Mentor’s role is to compassionately engage with a mentee in an open, non-judgmental and non-hierarchical process towards the development of the mentee’s spiritual path and meditation practice. This process will honor and harness the mentee’s own archetypal spiritual styles, questions and personal life experiences while exploring and appropriately adapting authentic insights, methods and practices from one or more of the world’s profound spiritual and secular wisdom traditions.
Recognizing Boundaries of Role
InterSpiritual Mentors provide services only within the boundaries of their role established through education, training, and supervision in the context of InterSpiritual Mentoring. They refer to other professionals as deemed appropriate. InterSpiritual Mentors do not engage in behavior that is exploitive of the InterSpiritual Mentor/Mentee relationship, such as, but not limited to, sexual relations with their Mentees.
Honoring Diversity
InterSpiritual Mentors honor each unique person and do not discriminate based on age, class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture, gender, religious orientation, or disability.
Confidentiality
InterSpiritual Mentors do not share identifying personal information about their Mentees, students, or colleagues in any way, including but not limited to, avenues such as media, writing manuscripts of any nature, lectures or other public media, unless the person has given written consent to do so. Any use of recording is conducted with the other’s knowledge and consent for stated purposes of such.
Media and Other Types of Presentations
InterSpiritual Mentors make sure that they do not engage in misrepresentations of InterSpiritual work and that their public endeavors are consistent with the ethical guidelines for InterSpiritual Mentors. While participants in general courses are welcome to provide evaluations that might be shared with the general public, Mentors are not to solicit testimonials from Mentees.
Written Materials
InterSpiritual Mentors maintain confidentiality in storing or transferring personal information about their Mentees. If such information is ever shared online in any way unknown to the Mentee, Mentors delete personal identifiers.
Education and Training Purposes
When InterSpiritual Mentors are responsible for education and training they will make sure that they are employing methodology, principles and content consistent with the curriculum for certification.
Transparency Regarding Goals of Mentorship
Interspiritual Mentors obtain written consent to engage in the mentorship relationship and they inform Mentors about what the mentorship will entail as well as the anticipated timeline and fees, and they give the Mentor an opportunity to ask questions and receive answers. If the Mentor is in training, then the Mentee is informed that the work is being supervised and is given the name of the supervisor.
Disclaimer: When providing InterSpiritual mentoring, Interspiritual Mentors are not acting as medical or mental health care professionals and are not providing medical care or psychotherapy or any other mental health care. Any representation to the contrary by an InterSpiritual Mentor violates the ethical guidelines and principals of InterSpiritual mentorship. If a Mentee is seeking medical or psychological care or is aware that they have a medical or mental illness, they should consult with an appropriate medical or mental health care professional if they have not already done so. Interspiritual Mentors have completed a certificate program in InterSpiritual Mentoring offered by the Spiritual Paths Foundation. This certificate is not a license or certification provided by any state or national licensing board or professional association.