Family therapists and religious communities: Negotiating dual relationships

Family therapists involved with religious communities as leaders, employees , or community members face unique challenges in evaluating the potential b enefits and risks of dual relationships. Building on existing literature, w e propose a three-level model of factors far therapists to use to evaluate risk: (a) professional ethics codes and legal guidelines, (b) theory of the rapy, and (c) contextual variables and relationships among the therapist, t he client and the religious community.