The Moral and Practical Implications of Internet Counseling

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Access to the Internet is growing quickly and counseling services are starting to be offered to customers. Such services may be specifically attractive to customers who may not be capable to find such services locally. The disadvantages of using the Internet for counseling include the loss of the non-verbal communication level. The paper addresses the moral implications of counseling in this medium. It concludes that there is a need for more guidelines in professional codes of practice.

Counseling is starting to be offered over the Internet. This is generally in one of two types, firstly as an exchange of electronic mail messages in which there is some delay between responses and secondly, in private chat rooms where speed is limited only by typing capability. There are a number of moral and practical complexities related with counseling via the Internet, which will be outlined in this paper, and which is not presently addressed in several codes of practice. In the United States, the National Board for Certified Counselors presently proposed guidelines for counseling over the Internet and this initiated discussion on whether such a medium is suitable for counseling. Some argued that it was legitimizing an unknown area too fast and they have increased a number of concerns (William, 2006).

The question occurs as to whether communication via the Internet should be utilized to support counseling. This is not a theoretical question as counseling services are previously being offered via the Internet. Counseling services via the Internet may be the only way to attaining counseling if the customer or counselor is in a distant area a long way from normal services. Other customers or counselors may select to form a...

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...oral features on this development. While we believe that there are moral and practical complexities in establishing this kind of relation via the Internet. We conclude that the professional counseling entities want to address this topic and if essential to adapt their codes of conduct to help to make sure those potential and actual clients or customers are not exploited.

Works Cited

Bloom, J.W. (2004). NBCC Web-Counseling Standards, Counseling

Today. New York: American Counseling Association. http://www.counseling.org/ctonline/news/nbcc_standards.htm.

William, J. (2006). “The ethical practice of Web-counseling”.

London: British Journal of Guidance and Counseling.

British Association for Counseling. (2001). Amended AGM

September 1993, Management Committee addition 1 May 1996, Code of Ethics and Practice for Counselors, BAC, Rugby, UK. London: BAC.

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