Current ethical decision-making models focus principally on cognitive factors and less on the emotional aspects of ethical challenges. This practice reflects a reliance on knowledge-driven, modernist approaches that emphasize objectivity and the primacy of rational thinking. Newer postmodern and constructivist approaches emphasize the need to consider the counselor holistically, as a thinking/feeling being who brings into the present moment the accumulated weight of the past. In order to bridge the gap between a cognitive, modernist approach and a feeling, experience-based postmodern approach, the authors outline an instructional approach that uses family systems theory to assist counselors in becoming conscious about how family roles and early emotional experiences can negatively impact present professional behavior.