Summary
In the counseling profession, moral quandaries are unavoidable. The counselor must determine whether to disclose personal information in case the client confesses to having committed a crime in the past or that her spouse has abused her. An adviser could be conflicted about whether to support the client if he makes a choice that the counselor vehemently disagrees with.
Confidentiality
In counseling, maintaining confidentiality is a crucial ethical concept since, without it, a client won’t be able to trust an expert to keep her secrets private. The ethical code directs everyone in this sphere in how to react when you learn something that you don’t believe should be kept a secret, such as that one of the clients plans to commit suicide. The criteria were updated in 2014 to state that ACA (American Counseling Association) members may violate confidentiality in order to avoid “severe and predictable damage” (Francis, 2020, p. 3). According to the rule, confidentiality is waived when someone is in obvious and impending danger.
Relationships
It’s not always simple to keep the client-counselor connection professional. Counselors can find that they and the client both hang out with the same people or that they both find each other attractive. It all depends on the level of empathy for the client. Empathy is defined as “cognitive, affective, and behavioral interpersonal reactions to another person, including various forms of perspective taking, empathic concern, personal distress, and other congruent emotional and behavioral responses” (Lishner, 2017, p.1). It is more likely that you will abuse your authority since your patient is in a vulnerable situation, such as by taking advantage of them sexually. The code of ethics provides counselors with a yardstick, which is used to measure the quality of their personal interactions, such as the rule that you should not start a romantic or sexual connection with a client until the counseling relationship has come to an end.
References
Francis, P. C. (2020). Legal and ethical issues in college counseling. In D. A. Paladino, L. M. Gonzalez, & J. C. Watson (Eds.), College counseling and student development: Theory, practice, and campus collaboration (pp. 77–98). American Counseling Association.
Lishner, D. A., Stocks, E. L., & Steinert, S. W. (2017). Empathy.Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, 1–8. Web.