The Tarasoff Case Confidentiality is a common controversy today when deciding if therapist should keep their patients confidential when they have made any kind of threat. Confidentiality should be breached in this instance. One main reason that threats should be taken more seriously from mental patients is the Tarasoff case.
The Tarasoff case is a case study based in 1969 where a girl named Tatiana Tarasoff was shot with a pellet gun and then stabbed seventeen time to her death by Pronsenjit Poddar. Poddar had sought out psychological treatment at the Cowell Memorial Hospital at the University of California at Berkeley. During one of these sessions Poddar confided in Dr. Lawrence Moore that he planned to kill Tarasoff. He was then diagnosed
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D. explains that in the decades following the Tarasoff incident, 33 US states have passed the Tarasoff law while the other 11 have left the option up to the discretion of the therapist. But is the Tarasoff decision needed to protect life? In 2013 a presidential Address by Donald N. Bersoff of Drexel University who was then-president of the American Psychological Association, argued that the decision is "bad law, bad social science, and bad social policy." Bersoff pointed out that one of the major problems with the Tarasoff law is that it requires therapists to decide the seriousness of the threat being made. This law gives therapist the authority to make decisions for a patient that could cause unnecessary problems that may or may not be useful. This doctor believes that this law is a breach in patient confidentiality. He believes that therapist do not have the right to judge violence. How do they distinguish between a serious threat or a joke? Therapist counteract this argument and say that most therapist have a special relationship with their patients which could give them the duty to control their behavior. They argue that a violent past has nothing to do with a violent future. Poddar did not have a violent past but his therapist foreseen a possible violent future and decided to
Although doctor-patient confidentiality is standard today, a caveat about this privilege is that it does not protect all statements made to therapists and only applies to regularly scheduled appointments. Additionally, if a patient reveals that they intend to harm someone, it is the therapist’s duty to report this fact to the proper authorities.
...rt of the medical profession, the therapists are expected to maintain the confidentiality of their clients. A psychologist must be able to acquire a client’s trust in order to keep quality confidentiality amongst the two parties. Only on seriously occasions should the patient’s records be shared, under certain other conditions the psychotherapy records of a minor can be reviewed by others without prior written consent. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), psychologists can usually give way the patient records to parents or legal guardians. Some of the ethical rules that apply to the practice of child and adolescent psychiatry are clear and generally agreed upon For example, rules against sexual contact or harsh or abusive treatment are encoded as boundary violations. A psychotherapist must be able to respect the boundaries of the client.
Without exception, confidentiality trumps duty to warn, court rules (2004). Mental Health Law Report, 22 (6), 53. Retrieved from http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=GRCM&docId=A120474886&source=gale&userGroupName=clemson_itweb&version=1.0
There are a number of problems that present in modern practice that can significantly affect or compromise confidential client information. Primarily, these types of problems are usually categorized as belonging into one of two areas of violation that provide unauthorized access to confidential information. The first area of disturbance of confidentiality occurs when the professional boundaries of the client-therapist relationship are breached, such as when practitioners partake in multiple relationships or decide to access public information about a patient online.
Convicted for the murders of his wife and two kids, thirty-four years ago, Dr. MacDonald still endures the agony of being accused of killing his family. Even after twenty-four years of imprisonment and several unlawful court hearings, additional documentation continues to up hold Dr. MacDonald’s testimony.
Over the course of their therapeutic relationship, Dr. Davenport violates client confidentiality as it is described by the American Counseling
In today’s society with the blogs, the gossip sites and the other forms of social media, confidentiality is a thing of the past. However, for, physicians and other health professionals, they are held to a higher standard to maintain a level of ethics and confidentiality for their patients. Confidentiality is a major duty for a health professional, but is there ever a time to where it is okay to tell what a patient says in confident? What if the patient is a minor, or a senior citizen or someone who is mentally challenged? What if a patient is being abused or wants to commit suicide? Does it matter if it is a nurse, or a dentist, or a psychologist or is all medical professional held to the same moral standard? What roles does a consent form or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act plays in the medical world in being confidentiality? I would like to explore Confidentiality and the moral effects it has on the health profession.
Privacy and confidentiality is a very important concept in the health care system and must be handled carefully to avoid disclosing crucial information about patients.
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 28. (2000): 315-324. Web. The Web. The Web. 13 Apr 2011.
However, there are some cases that professionals have to rely on the Law. The Law is different from moral principles and Code of Ethics and its focus is on the legal perspective to protect the professional. The Law is defined by Remley and Herlihy (2010) as “general or specific regarding both what is required and what is allowed of individuals who from a governmental entity” (p.4). One major example is the Tarasoff and the Duty to Protect which is a law that was created after the case that happened with a university student, Tatiana Tarasoff and her boyfriend. Tarasoff’s parents sue the psychotherapists alleging that the professionals should have warned the student. Because of this case, the law raised a major concern that the confidentiality that professionals should follow according to the ACA and AMHCA Code of Ethics has to be broken when there is an issue that can affect a third party in the situation. Like the AMHCA refers to confidentiality as “a right granted to all clients of mental health counseling services. From the onset of the counseling relationship, mental health counselors inform clients of these rights inclu...
they are afraid that the mental patient might try to harm them. It would be interesting to
Confidentiality in health care is a growing concern as nurses are often faced with the challenges of reacting to question regarding patient’s progress (McGowan, 2012). Confidentiality as defined by Gregory, Raymond-Seniuk, Patrick and Stephen (2015) is the promise given to a person that his or her personal information will not be disclosed randomly if no consent has been given regardless of who is seeking such information (p.600). This paper will attempt to explore the concept of confidentiality as a sensitive issue, challenges that nurses face as they try to protect patient’s health information and some guidelines that govern protection of information and when this information can be divulged.
Given a case scenario participants should be able to differentiate those situations where patient confidentiality is not followed.
...confidential information is shared without their permission, this situation can be detrimental to the client. The client may stop treatment or be passive-aggressive towards the therapist by being late of cancelling appointments with the clinician.
In the world of psychology therapist raise a question whether or not they should “disclose personal information during psychotherapy. Several therapists “have suggested that therapist self-discloser can have a positive impact on treatment. From this view, self-discloser by the therapists may elicit greater discloser by the client enhancing the possibilities for client self-exploration”(e.g., Bugental, 1965, chap. 7; Jourad, 1971, chap. 17; Strassberg, Roback, D’Antonio & Gable, 1977). In addition, “self-discloser is thought to encourage an atmosphere of honesty and understanding between client and therapist, fostering a stronger and more effective therapeutic relationship”). However many other therapist disagrees with that statement. They reply “ psychodynamic theorist since Freud have generally regarded therapist self-disclosure as detrimental to treatment because it might interfere with the therapeutic process, shifting the focus of therapy away from the client”(e.g., see cutis, 1982b; Freud, 1912/1958; Greenson, 1967, chap. 3). In addition, it is argued that therapist self-discloser may adversely affect treatment outcome by exposing therapist weakness or vulnerabilities, thereby undermining client trust in the therapist”(e.g., see cutis, 1982b, 1981)