Ethical issues counselling regarding client of anxiety

1. Ethical issues in
counselling
Sithara Withanage

2. Content
1. Introduction
2. Client profile
3. Vignette
4. Options
5. Discussion
6. Ethics
7. Decision
8. Questions and discussion
9. References

3. Introduction
 Mr. Eric the therapist has worked with a young women for about 1
year.
 Client has a history of rejection and abandonment as well as people
misusing her.
 She received an offer letter from a pharmaceutical company for sales
representative post and was assigned to a regional director who is
known by the counsellor personally.
 She discussed with her counsellor that she has a fear regarding she
may experience rejection from office personnel.

4. Client Profile
• 24 years old Ana.
• Her parents abandoned her when she was
a kid and grew up in an orphanage.
• She have history of rejection and people
misusing her.
• She is suffering from severe anxiety and
she have history of self-harm because of
her anxiety.
• From a year she was attending counselling
sessions with Counsellor Eric.
• Recently appointed as a sales
representative by pharmaceutical
company.

5. Vignette
o In next session Ana mentioned to Eric reporting that
Simon complimenting her, on the way she looks and her
ability to make sales calls.
o And they spend lot of time together and she feels
uncomfortable regarding this and Simon forward her
funny texts and emails to her which makes inappropriate
remarks.
o In unplanned social event Simon and Eric meet each
other Simon drag Eric to a corner and tell him that he
(Simon) has become attracted to this new sales
representative and want to have an affair with her.
o Eric politely explain that he is uncomfortable to talk about
Simon’s personal marital issues.

6. Options
1. Tell his client about her boss’s intention
2. Ignore the situation
3. Disclosing the truth to the boss
4. Your idea of an option: ………………………………

7. Options
Violations Secured Consequence
Tell his client about her
boss’s intention
Avoiding harm to
client
Duty of care
Confidentiality
May trigger her anxiety
May affect the
therapeutic
relationship
Ignore the situation Duty of care
Fidelity
Avoiding harm to
client
Confidentiality Client maybe at risk
because of the unusual
desire of her boss
Disclosing the truth to
the boss
Confidentiality
Fidelity
Duty of care May harm the client
and client – counsellor
relationship
She might lose her job

8. Ethics
APS make provisions for maintaining
confidentiality in the collection,
recording, accessing, storage,
dissemination, and disposal of
information; and take
reasonable steps to protect the
confidentiality of information
after they leave a specific work
setting, or cease to provide
psychological services.
take reasonable steps to
prevent harm occurring as a
result of their conduct; take
reasonable steps to ensure that
the delegate’s conduct does not
place clients or other parties to
the psychological service at risk
of harm.
act with the care and skill
expected of a competent
psychologist. take responsibility
for the reasonably foreseeable
consequences of their conduct.
take reasonable steps to
prevent harm occurring as a
result of their conduct.
ACA Confidentiality is a means of
providing the client with
safety and privacy and thus
protects client autonomy. For
this reason any limitation on the
degree of confidentiality
is likely to diminish the
effectiveness of counselling.
Exceptional circumstances may
arise which give the
counsellor good grounds for
believing that serious harm
may occur to the client or to
other people. Counsellors must
take all reasonable steps to
ensure that the client does not
suffer
physical, emotional or
psychological harm during
counselling
sessions
Counsellors must take all
reasonable steps to ensure
that the client does not suffer
physical, emotional or
psychological harm during
counselling sessions.
PACFA Being trustworthy is regarded as
fundamental to understanding
and resolving ethical challenges
and dilemmas.
The practitioner has an ethical
responsibility to strive to
mitigate any harm caused to a
client, even when the harm is
unavoidable or unintended.
practitioners are accountable
for delivering competent
services that meet the client’s
needs.
Confidentiality Avoiding harm Duty to care

9. Decision
 As the counsellor we can ask her the current situation about the
issue and if she complain anything we can act upon to that.
Pros
Securing Confidentiality
Might avoid harm to client
Secure therapeutic relationship

10. Questions and Answers……

11. References
SMITH, D. (2003, January). 10 ways practitioners can avoid frequent ethical
pitfalls. Retrieved from American Psychological Association :
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan03/10ways.aspx
Association, A. C. (n.d.). Code of Ethics and Practice.
G, D. (2011, 9 11). Ethics and psychology. Retrieved from ethical psychology:
http://www.ethicalpsychology.com/2011/09/vignette-5-tricky-situation.html
PACFA. (2015). Interim Code of Ethics.
scoiety, A. P. (n.d.). Code of ethics.