Ethical Issues in Counseling Practice

1. ETHICAL ISSUES
IN COUNSELING
PRACTICE

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Understand the code of ethics for guidance counselors.
2. Identify characteristics and procedural steps of ethical decision making.
3. Understand the right of informed consent
4. Articulate the dimensions of confidentiality (privacy, privileged communications, and exceptions).
5. Become familiar with the ethical and legal aspects of using technology.
6. Identify the major exceptions to confidentiality.
7. Describe ethical issues related to multiple relationships in counseling practice.
8. Understand various perspectives on multiple relationships.
9 Explain the differences between a boundary crossing and a boundary violation.
10. Understand how to manage boundaries and risks associated with using social media.
11.Explain what is involved in becoming an ethical counselor.

3. PUT TING CLIENTS’ NEEDS BEFORE YOUR OWN
• As counselors we cannot always keep our personal needs completely separate from our
relationships with clients.
• We all have certain blind spots and distortions of reality. As helping professionals, we must
actively work toward expanding our self-awareness and learn to recognize our areas of
prejudice and vulnerability.
• We must also examine other, less obviously harmful personal needs that can get in the way
of creating growth-producing relationships, such as the need for control and power; the
inordinate need to be nurturing; the need to change others in the direction of our own
values; the need for feeling adequate, particularly when it becomes overly important that the
client confirm our competence; and the need to be respected and appreciated.

4. • Ethics are guidelines that are based on the basic principles of the counselor/
practitioner code of ethics.
• Corey (1996) briefly outlines five principles in which therapeutic boundaries are based upon:
• › Beneficence: a counselor must accept responsibility for promoting what is good for the client
with the expectation that the client will benefit from the counselling sessions.
• › Nonmaleficence: "doing no harm". The counsellor must avoid at all times, (even
inadvertently) any activities or situations with the client that could cause a conflict of interest.
• › Autonomy: the counsellor's ethical responsibility to encourage client independent thinking and
decision-making, and to deter all forms of client dependency.
• › Justice: the counsellor's commitment to provide an equal and fair service to all clients
regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, disability and socio-economic status.
• › Fidelity: being honest with clients and faithfully honouring the counsellor's commitment to the
client's progress.

5. THE ROLE OF
ETHICS CODES
AS A CATALYST
FOR IMPROVING
PRACTICE
• They educate counseling practitioners
and the general public about the
responsibilities of the profession.
• They provide a basis for accountability
and protect clients from unethical
practices.
• provide a basis for reflecting on and
improving your professional practice.
Self-monitoring is a better route for
professionals to take than being
policed by an outside agency (Herlihy
& Corey, 2015a).

6. ETHICAL ISSUES
IN COUNSELING
1. The Right of Informed Consent
• Informed Consent involves the right of clients to be
informed about their therapy and to make
autonomous decisions pertaining to it.
• Informed consent in counseling is important as it
provides a safeguard for both the client and therapist. It
allows the client to make informed choices and protects
him or her from potential harm.
• Additionally, it helps to foster a good therapeutic
relationship between client and therapist. However, for it
to be valid, all necessary information pertaining to
treatment sessions and the available alternatives should
be provided.

7. CONFIDENTIALITY AND PRIVACY
• Confidentiality is an ethical concept, is the legal duty of
therapists not to disclose information about a client.
• Confidentiality is central to developing a trusting and productive
client–therapist relationship.
• Counselors have an ethical and legal responsibility to discuss the
nature and purpose of confidentiality with their clients early in the
counseling process.

8. WHEN TO BREAK
CONFIDENTIALITY
• If the client may be
an immediate danger
to themself or
another
• If the client is
endangering another
who cannot protect
themself, as in the
case of a child, a
person with a
disability, or elder
abuse
• As required by laws

9. DUAL RELATIONSHIPS
• Dual relationships occur when a counselor and a client share
another significant relationship, be it personal, financial, or
social, beyond the professional one. These relationships can
compromise the counselor's objectivity, potentially harming the
client and the therapeutic process

10. ESTABLISHING
PERSONAL AND
PROFESSIONAL
BOUNDARIES
“Boundaries define the helping
pathway for patients and
professionals and are integral to
professional effectiveness.”
(Everett and Gallop, 2001)

11. BOUNDARY
CROSSINGS V.
BOUNDARY
VIOLATIONS
• • A boundary crossing is a “decision to
deviate from an established boundary
for a specific purpose- a brief
excursion with a return to the
established limits of a professional
relationship”(Peternelj-Taylor, 2003). •
• A boundary crossing is also “any
activity that moves the clinician from a
strictly objective position…” (Guthriel
and Gabbard, 1993). •
• Boundary crossings may be minor and
may even be therapeutic
• A boundary crossing becomes a
violation when it becomes harmful to
the patient. It can be difficult to assess
when harm is caused.

12. BOUNDARY CROSSINGS
• Taking phone calls between sessions(if not an emergency or previously agreed upon) •
Small gifts(giving and accepting) •
• Special fee arrangements or bartering •
• Allowing clients to run a large balance
• Excessive therapist self-disclosure/disclosure of personal information
• Extending time beyond what was initially agreed •
• Saying “yes” rather than “no” •
• Making special allowances for a patient

13. BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS
• Avoidable dual or multiple relationships
• Sexual relationships
An important consideration of what causes harm to the patient is not the clinician’s intent or
even necessarily the clinician’s behavior, but the meaning of the behavior to the patient.
A clinicians’ duty is to know well his or her personal and professional identities; be aware of
the distinction between the two and preserve this distinction in the therapeutic framework
(Sakar, 2004).

14. SOCIAL MEDIA AND BOUNDARIES
• Spotts-De Lazzer (2012) believes practitioners will have to translate and maintain
traditional ethics when it comes to social media and offers these recommendations:
• Š
Š
Limit what is shared online. Š
Š
• Include clear and thorough social networking policies as part of the informed consent process. Š
Š
• Regularly update protective settings because social media providers often change their privacy
rules.

15. Becoming
an Ethical
Counselor

16. WHY IS THEORY IMPORTANT IN COUNSELING
WORK? (ROUSSEAU, 1968)
• 1. Theory gives a framework for integrity between understanding, interpretation and,
ultimately, action.
• 2. Theory provides generalizations that not only clarify our understanding but may lead us
to similar conclusions about other situations. In this way, theory creates knowledge.
• 3. Theory helps inexperienced counselors by serving as a “road map.”
• 4. Theory is the conduit for research.
• 5. Theory is how humans master nature. To really understand why you are doing
something, you must have thought realistically and thoroughly
• 6. Action in counseling must be immediate, under circumstances that may be somewhat
unforeseen, complicated, and new. But we don’t have to have all the answers. By utilizing
theory we can draw upon the experiences of others that have gone before us