My Code of Ethics for Readings and Healing Sessions

Recently I wrote a code of ethics for my sessions. I wanted to explain my code of ethics here and give more details.

Unlike doctors, psychologists and mental health workers, there is no professional body that psychics or spiritual healers can belong to which says to clients that they take their role seriously.  So I created my own code of ethics here, which I’ll explain in more detail.

Plus, there are the horror stories.  I hear them from clients, from other psychics and it seems they are the reason why psychics generally have a bad reputation with some people.  Perhaps it’s one of the reasons why some people don’t like the word ‘psychic’.  I want to improve that if I can.

I’ve written about some of those horror stories here on my website.

Horror stories like:

1.“A psychic told me I was disconnected from source and a negative soul.  I felt depressed for a whole week before I discovered your article on negative souls and realized it might not be true for me after all.”

2. “A psychic is offering to remove a very damaging curse someone cast on me, for $500.  Should I take them up on this?  Do you see any curses in my energy?”

3. “A psychic told me I was going to die early on in my life.  Can you please check this for me?”

I will just say I have made mistakes in the past. I’ve done a few things that now make me blush because they were so obviously unhelpful for clients or communicated in a way that wasn’t helpful. You learn through making mistakes and you self-correct (hopefully). So I am by no means perfect.

But the thing about all this is that sometimes, people who come for psychic readings are in a vulnerable place.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.  I’ve been vulnerable in my spiritual search and I’ve been burned.  That’s why I created this code for myself as a practitioner. And I decided to publish it here to spark discussion among those who do the same kind of work as me. Do you feel the same? Do you disagree?

Why Bother With Ethics?

I think it can be a powerful statement in the as-yet very unregulated profession of psychic readings and spiritual healing.

My Statement of Ethics:

1. A client’s trust is precious and I will always keep everything you tell me confidential.

2. I will never tell you about something negative (like an issue in your energy body or from your past) unless I have the tools to heal it with you there and then, or can refer you immediately to someone who can.  I believe that pointing out an issue or something negative is pointless and can cause distress unless it is followed by a resolution.

Have you ever been told about something negative in your energy field and then the practitioner has blithely said they can’t help you with it?  I’ve been in that position and it’s actually quite scary. It’s like an architect saying ‘I think your house is going to fall down sometime soon, but I can’t help you to stop it from happening.’ I was once told by a psychic that in a parallel lifetime, I was generating some very negative karma for myself through some irresponsible acts, but there was nothing we could do – I’d just have to resolve it in time. It was supposed to be a healing session, but it only created distress. I felt guilty and sad about it for three days. Then I decided to believe it might not be true for me. Now I only let very trusted healers take a look at my aura. For the same reason, I no longer talk in terms of negative attaching entities that run programs on people.

3. I do not believe in ‘negative souls’/dark souls/‘black magicians’ or whatever you want to call them.  I will not tell you that you or anyone else is a negative or dark soul because I think it is a ridiculous and harmful idea to tell someone they are not connected to Source or God or whatever you want to call it.  I have never had someone with truly malicious intent book a reading with me – ever. I know you have a connection to source.

I am not naive enough to think that there are no negative people in the world.  But I sincerely doubt that any of them get a psychic reading wanting information on how they can express their soul gifts more fully or improve their relationships.  I find it unacceptable to tell a client that they are disconnected from source/God and are draining those around them as a result, because I’ve seen the upset it causes.

4. I do not make psychic predictions because I believe it can undermine your personal and spiritual power to consciously choose the course of your life and can even have you putting your life on hold, waiting for the future to happen.  We can explore what taking certain options will do to different areas of your life and aura, but I won’t give you concrete predictions of where you’re going, as if it is outside of your control.

I have received psychic predictions from other psychics.  One told me I was going to marry my ex-boyfriend who was highly abusive at the time.  I panicked at the thought of spending the rest of my life with a man who didn’t appreciate me and promptly chucked him.  Other psychic predictions have kept me in a place where I sat around waiting for life to happen to me.  I was disappointed because nothing happened.  Psychic predictions have meant I wasted my time, so I personally won’t do them for others.

5. If you book a reading and I come to the conclusion at the start of a reading (or beforehand) that I cannot help you, I will refund you.  I am skilled in some things – I can help you become more aware of your soul gifts, I can do cord-cutting and I can do aura readings.  But if I get the sense it is not in your highest interests to get a session with me, I will refund your money and suggest another practitioner or course of action.  If when I tune into you, I sense that you have booked the wrong kind of session (i.e. the session you’ve booked won’t help you), I will give you my recommendations for what kind of session to have instead.

I know that ethics are subjective and mine are shaped by my past experiences.

Meet Anna

Hi, I’m Anna Sayce! My purpose here on this website is to provide practical techniques and information to help empaths to understand, and fix the root of their energetic overwhelm & also to help sensitives to embrace and develop their intuitive gifts. I believe that developing our spiritual & intuitive side is very powerful and allows us to improve our own lives, and if we wish, even make the world a better place for others. Discover more >

15 Comments

  1. Ray

    Hi Anna,

    great idea to suggest ethical guidelines, sometimes psychics can be a bit blaise about what they do. For the most part other people have little or no understanding of the world that psychics live in.

    I concur whole heartedly with all of them except number three. Little confused as to why you would have that in there if no dark souls (for want of a better phrase) would come to you, seems pointless as you would never be in a position to say it.

    Unless of course it is for the benefit of others by pointing out that if they seek this type of healing, then by the very nature of that seeking would indicate to them that they are of the light?

    Otherwise, I think it is good practice to have a code of ethics and publish them openly, we are in this for the greatest good of all and trust earnt through honesty is important.

    Ray

  2. Ray

    Hi Anna,

    I did have a look after I posted, so yes I see why from your perspective you have that in there.

    It’s a bit of a heavy subject matter, I see negativity (darkness – absence of light) as a necessary thing, here in the third dimension. Without it there would simply be light, we were given this here on Earth intitially. Think of the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of eden, this is how existence here was, pure and solely of the light. Then human consciousness decided as a whole that a different experience was required, enter the serpent (darkness) and duality was born. Ever since then we have been trying to reconnect, to become one again.

    So for me negativity has its role to play (just a little too lopsided from my point of view). Still now I have opened up to all this spiritual stuff, I am aware of its role and choose to not engage, I no longer judge (boy did I used to do that a lot) wherever possible, not easy at all, negative conditioning here is difficult to overcome.

    I am in a better position than a lot of people, being able to sense negative influences and therefore avoid engaging and feeding it. However it is hard to talk about this sort of thing outside of people who are aware of it, I don’t really deal with energy on personal levels, not my thing, so mostly I am met with at best consternation usually they think I am somewhat mad, lmao.

    Anyway, not sure what this has to do with your article, rambling as usual. Bottom line, virtually all of us to some extent or other are negative in some way or other, whether that be through attachment or otherwise. It is all through choice we have made on this level or another, so as practitioners of whatever modality that is used we have our own unique perspective (understanding) of it. This will change over time, hopefully to a better level of understanding, so how we interact with clients is probably unique as well at any given point.

    Is it not possible that some practitioners are guided to act in that manner to clients for a specific purpose. At the end of the day we as individuals choose how we react to anything that happens to us, well as empowered beings anyway. Not easy to accept that more than one view is correct (I should know I’m always right lol). So what do we do, we just go with what feels right as I am sure you do yourself, knowing that it is the right thing for us to do whilst accepting that someone else may see it differently and act in another way, as long as we act in a truthful manner.

    I’m sorry seem to be going off at tangents again, it’s really to do with light and dark, perhaps I should have posted under that article?

  3. Henrietta

    Hi Anna,

    Thank you for publishing this post. When I first started reading tarot cards for people professionally, my mentor recommended me to write out my own code of ethics (http://tarotcardoftheday.wordpress.com/about-henrietta/). So, I was quite surprised later on to find out that only a few professional psychics displayed their codes of ethics online. So, thank you very much for sharing your view with us!

    Henrietta

  4. Patti Foy

    Hi Anna,

    It’s true… there is no one keeping track of who’s out there and what kinds of things they are doing. I’ve had lots of potential clients not want readings because they are afraid due to bad experiences in the past. I’ve also been told some startlingly upsetting things that people have been told by some very well-known and highly respected psychics or astrologers. It’s no wonder they don’t want readings!

    On the other hand, there are LOTS who do, there are LOTS of really good sensitive readers out there, and something like this well-considered promise goes a long way toward helping assure that remains the case.

    Thanks so much. Rock on! 😀

  5. Anna

    Hi there Ray – Nice to see you on here. Did you read the article I linked to? I have had several clients now who have been told they’re negative souls by a practitioner and given advice or a clearing to help them to ‘turn away’ from the darkness. They really weren’t fundamentally negative in their soul nature as far as I could see when I did my empath merge and read their Akashic records. Me stating #3 is my attempt to disassociate myself from that practice. I think it’s a really shoddy thing to do to a client.

  6. Lisa at Practically Intuitive

    Anna, this is fabulous! I happened upon it the other night while perusing your site and thought that I needed to do something similar.

    Thanks so much for making it available to those of us who are also doing this work professionally. I will be adding it to my site (and providing a link because I wish to give all due credit to you for the idea and the words!).

    You’re the best! 🙂

  7. Andrea

    Thanks for this article Anna! Very insightful and great of you to share. As a healer I found this to be a great reminder of the influence that we can have on other people’s lives and that we should always consider the impact of what we say and the expectations we create for clients. Being mindful is key.

  8. AarTiana

    This is an EXCELLENT start Anna! I have a few others, and one of those is that I won’t “spy” on other people for someone. If it is EMPOWERING to the client, then it is usually a good thing – that is my first guideline! And as mentioned, there are so many ways that the delicate balance of empowerment can be tampered with as to cause harm, even a little, and even unintentionally. I do strive to be the best person possible as well, so I don’t inadvertently project issues onto my clients. I like this list so far, and will come up with my own Code of Ethics now that you have such a good head start! Thanks once again!

  9. Anna

    Ray – Yes, I feel you are right – negativity is definitely a part of life here and here to stay. And personally, I think that the highs wouldn’t be so great without the lows.

    I accept that I have a negative side too and that everyone does. But I just find it harmful when a practitioner defines a client by their shadow side and makes it who they are. When I have tuned into those clients who have been called ‘dracs’ or changelings, I find ordinary souls with negative stuff in their aura. Like the rest of us. So I feel for them.

    I totally think there’s room for practitioners seeing things differently. I just think when practitioners are telling people they’re negative souls, it’s the practitioner’s issues getting in the way and I can’t believe a client is paying for a reading and then being told such a thing.

    Anyway, I wrote about that at length in that article so no need to go on about it I guess 🙂

    Thanks for stopping by Ray!!

  10. Anna

    Henrietta – Thank you for linking to your code of ethics. I think that’s great to have it on your about page. It gave me a couple of other ideas, like treating all clients equally regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I hope my clients already know that about me, but I might add something like that to mine too.

  11. Anna

    Hi Lisa, yay! Glad that you liked the code of ethics and feel welcome to use it! xxx

  12. Anna

    Hi AarTiana,

    Yes – re. spying on people for clients. I won’t do that either. Whether something is empowering to the client is a good way to measure whether it is ethical to do it, (at least for me, as a reader.)

    Thanks for your thoughts on this!

  13. Rachael@Psychic Source

    AarTiana,

    I think #2 is the best code any psychic can go by. What is the point of telling someone negative if you can’t offer them a means to heal it? Like you said, the point of psychic readings is to give a vulnerable/lost soul some guidance. In my opinion, psychics are pretty close to psychologists.

    This was a great post!

    – Rachael

  14. Bob

    Every psychic should follow certain rules of ethics. If they don’t, they can cause a lot of damage. Also, I think no psychic can predict the future with 100% accuracy. All a psychic can do is predict certain probabilities. Therefore it would be highly irresponsible to tell someone for example that he/she will die within the next year.

  15. Mark

    Hello, thanks for publishing this. I wish someone had told the person that gave me a reading that says in three years I will be dead!

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