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Ethical issues of confidentiality in counseling
Confidentiality issues in counseling
Ethical issues of confidentiality in counseling
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The Code of Ethics for the National Association of Psychology clearly states in the code (4.05) disclosing confidential with the client’s consent, duty to protect, or legal mandated, and (4.02) code is the Limits of confidentiality(APA, 2015). The therapist should have reminded the client of the sign document about Confidentiality when she discuss her concern about his driving illegal. At one point one of these situation will open the thruway of permitting the therapist to warn and protect. It is very important to explain confidentiality to the client, and get a written sign document that the client understands the confidentiality. There is a difference between duty to warn, and duty to protect. Duty to Warn is when the therapist can contact
The expectation in the practitioner/client relationship is that any information disclosed will not be shared with others. Confidentiality is emphasized to provide the client with a safe haven in which to share traumatic events or embarrassing personal information about themselves (Krase, 2013). Disclosing this type of sensitive information...
Individual must not be seeking an order of nondisclosure for one of the following offenses:
By using The Case of Sally for this case study, I will work through the ethical decision making model to decide the best course of action. The Case of Sally can be found in Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions (8th edition), chapter 6 Confidentiality: Ethical and Legal Issues (p. 255). The therapist is having difficulty in determining if she has the ethical and legal responsibility to breach confidentiality. This case involves a 12-year-old girl named Sally, who experienced a brief encounter of sexual fondling by her intoxicated father. The father has no previous history of molesting his daughter. He has agreed to seek substance abuse counseling as a result of his inability to recollect the fondling incident. The family is
Not reporting when you suspect that your client is being abused by his or her spouse (Neukrug & Milliken, 2011). As a counselor, it should be a responsibility if the counselor suspects his or her client's spouse is being abusive. According to the ACA code of ethics (2014), section B.2.a, counselors keep information confidential unless it is required to protect clients or identify others from serious harm. It is always better to make a mistake on the side of caution. What if that individual did abuse his or her spouse and something bad happened where it resulted in hospitalization or even death and the counselor knew but did nothing to prevent it. It should not only be ethical but a legal responsibility as a licensed professional to report
Imagine living in a state where one is providing service to a client and the client divulged that he admits to wanting to end his ex-girlfriends life but one lives in a state where there is no duty to warn. What does one do in a situation like this? This question comes about due to the Tarasoff v. The University of California Board of Regents case as well as the fact that there is no uniformity in the United States over duty to warn or protect. Some states have permissive statutes while some have an established mandatory duty to warn while very few have no statute at all. According to Doverspike (2007), the APA standard is permissive ("may disclose") rather than mandatory ("shall disclose"). The APA Code of Ethics 4.05 part 3 states that disclosures without consent are is only allowed when mandated by law to protect the client, psychologist, or others from harm (Fisher, 2013, p. 346). How does one protect the confidentiality of a client but also protect others from potential harm? The Tarasoff v. The
I have learned that informed consent is very important. It is the start to the therapeutic relationship. As a human service professional you are ethically bound to inform your client of informed consent. They have the right to know about the risks and benefits, financial consideration, limitations of confidentiality, mandating reporting, and my qualifications as a professional.
Ethical issues in a counseling practice lay the foundation of a therapist in practice. Ethics are at the center of how the counseling process functions and operates in a successful manner for the clients who seek help in such a setting. In order for the counseling profession to be ethical and hold professional recognition, there are many facets that need to be examined and outlined to make sure all counselors and practitioners are functioning at the highest level and withholding their duties required by the counseling profession. The first introduction so to speak of the area of ethics also happens to be one of the first steps in counseling, which is the informed consent. The informed consent provides the basis of what happens or will be happening in a counseling setting and serves to inform the client to their rights, responsibilities, and what to expect. Most importantly, the informed consent is in place for the client’s benefit. It also is important to understand that culture and environment play a role in the treatment of a client and how theories can positively or negatively impact this treatment. Therapists need to understand how to work within the context of a theory while being able to understand the individual in their own environment. Although theories are put into place to serve as a framework, there are also alternative ways to approach counseling, one example being evidence-based practice. Such an approach is very specific, which presents a series of solutions for counseling as a whole, but also brings forth many problems. Every approach or theory introduces ethical concerns that need to be taken into consideration by the entire counseling community and how each can positively and negatively affect clients and the pr...
Though touching your patient and having multiple relationships with them aren’t the best way to go in my opinion, disclosing information to your patients is extremely beneficial. All therapists should learn to provide trust, comfort and an understanding to their patients, otherwise they are doing their job all wrong.
Cross and Sim (2000) cite Reid (1981) who defines confidentiality as “ the principle of maintaining the security of information elicited from an individual in the privileged circumstances of a professional relationship”. It has been highlighted by the Health Care Professional Council (HCPC, 2012) that when working in healthcare and dealing with personal information regarding patients, it is every health professionals role to ensure that information is handled correctly and kept safe. If for any reason personal information is required to be shared or passed on then the patient should provide informed consent (HCPC, 2012). The HCPC (2012) also note that if confidentiality is broken this may affect the care and patient relationship and result in patients being reluctant to share information important to their proper care.
An example is when a person threatens to transmit HIV and other diseases. It may be illegal in many countries for a person to infect other people with a disease knowingly especially HIV. However, a clinical psychologist should not be obligated to tell the other people of the risk of transmission. The client has a right to confidentiality. Duty to warn got developed when Tarasoff got murdered by a person who had threatened to do so. He had told the therapist that one day he would murder her, but the therapist protected the client’s confidentiality. When Tarasoff got killed in 1976, her parents went to court to report the Regents of the University of California. Another case was Jabloski by Pahls v. US. This case extended the duty to warn when it included reviewing history to detect history of violence. Jabloski had a history of violence that got discovered through an assessment by the doctors. Since the doctor failed to notify his girlfriend Kimbal, She got killed by him when Jabloski got released from the hospital (Cherry 2014).
108). Confidentiality has a dedicated section in the ACA Code of Ethics (2014), and particularly noted in code B.1.c, which reads, “counselors protect the confidential information of prospective and current clients. Counselors disclose information only with appropriate consent or with sound legal or ethical justification,” (p. 7). Rightfully so, confidentiality is a right of all counseling clients and importance is placed on it in professional ethical
The second ethical assumption is fidelity and its purpose for the therapist is to establish and maintain trust with the client. Maintaining trust as a therapist can at times be difficult because they have to keep any promises made to the client and it can be difficult particularly when keeping a client’s privacy. Without establishing and maintaining trust, it would be extremely difficult to conduct effective therapy with clients. This is why this particular assumption is so important among therapeutic relationships, because without it therapy is ineffective. By keeping trust and providing privacy for clients, it provides a foundation for the relationship in the session and with their conversations unless given permission by the client to share their conversation it must otherwise be kept only between therapist and client. The client’s right to privacy is also established in laws through existing HIPAA guidelines and requirements for therapist.
In the ever-changing world today, companies are continuing to innovate so they can maintain a competitive advantage. In order to keep their ideas secret, companies use legal documents called non-disclosure agreements or confidentiality agreements. Thousands of companies sign these contracts with other businesses and their own employees to ensure that current projects, innovative ideas, or new products are undisclosed from competitors. NDAs provide a level of protection and comfort when disclosing information to another party.
Ethics in the counselling and psychotherapy protects the client and the therapist involved in the therapeutic relationship and the therapeutic process as a whole; with the concepts that act as a guide for the therapists in provision of good practice and care for the client. The framework is built on values of counselling and psychotherapy; principles of trustworthiness, autonomy, fidelity, justice, beneficence, non-maleficence and self-respect, and provides standards of good practice and care for the practitioner (BACP, 2010). Ethical framework contributes to the development of the therapeutic relationship and process by assisting therapist’s decisions, and guides their behaviour and proceedings within their legal rights and duties. The ethical frame is structured on the boundaries of the therapeutic relationship and the therapists should be aware of their categories and be responsible for their forms. Monitoring and being aware of what goes on in and out of the room physically, emotionally and psychologically is primarily the duty of the therapist.
For instance, if the person comes in and needs to do Domestic Violence classes and a substance abuse class the person is going to be seeing two different therapists at the agency. I can understand the two therapists collaborating on what is best for the client as long as they are not disclosing what is being talked about in each of their individual group settings. Another issue that I have noticed at the agency that is of concern is at times there will be a group going in the large group room and the door will be open and people (usually staff) that walk past going to the kitchen area. The clients that are in the room are visible to whoever might pass by and what they are saying can be overheard. There has been a couple times where I have witnessed a therapist giving advice to a client. Then another time where one of the therapists was getting feedback in a situation with a client from their supervisor Marcela, and she told them they cannot give them advice, and the client knows what they need to do in their situation. One evening while one of therapists and I were facilitating a group and one client expressed they had just before arriving were situation they were not comfortable with, and they didn’t want to have contact with this person because the situation could escalate. By the end of the session the person that the client was avoiding having showed up at the agency and was sitting outside waiting for them. This was the last group of the night and the person came into the facility asking about the client, and the person working the front desk informed the person that that could not disclose any information regarding clients. Eventually the person outside left and the client ended up calling a cab; the therapist explained to the client that she or I being their therapist