Reference no: EM133192118

Discussion: Ethical and Professional Considerations for Professional Practice

Ethics are important to establish as a counseling professional and are an important part of a counselor's professional disposition. You may face ethical issues in your day-to-day interactions that seem difficult to navigate and handle. However, ethical issues that you face as a couples and family counselor can be significantly more complex and involve additional legal and professional considerations as well. Couples and family counselors often work with multiple people in the room and those people are often involved with other caregivers. Thus, the ethical management of confidentiality is paramount. Counseling professionals must also make decisions about ethical practice as they relate to issues such as fees/payment, access to care, professional development, and record keeping. In addition, couples and family counselors must consider competence, scope of practice, and other concepts related to professional practice.

Understanding the code of ethics for the AAMFT and the IAMFC is a critical first step in developing a core understanding of ethical methods to employ as a professional counselor. Extending beyond this core understanding so that you can more confidently navigate very complex ethical and legal issues is what this Discussion is all about.

For this Discussion, you will review difficult ethical dilemmas faced by Walden faculty in their professional careers. You will review how these issues were handled by faculty, and you will discuss what you might have done differently.

To Prepare:

• Review the Learning Resources prior to your review of this week's media program.
• Review the Ethical Challenges in Professional Practice media program and consider the ethical challenges faculty have faced when working with clients. Consider how you might have handled the situations discussed.

By Day 3

Post

Based on your readings and the media program, post your response to the following:

• What do you now know about ethical practices with couples and families that you did not previously know?
• What surprised you?
• What intimidates you?
• What do you think will be challenging when working with couples and families?
• How will you incorporate ethics into your professional development?
• Do you think you would have handled some of the situations presented in the video differently? If so, what would you have done differently?

Be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the Learning Resources and identify current relevant literature to support your work.

Discussion: Ethical and Professional Considerations for Professional Practice

Unlike individual counseling, couples and family counseling bring about certain ethical issues and considerations which one would have previously. One of the ethical dilemmas in which a counselor working with couples and families is that of confidentiality when certain relations between the couples or among family members are evident. Managing family secrets can be a hard issue for counselors, especially when such is critical in the counseling process (Hecker & Murphy, 2015). By reading this week's resources, it's evident that family secrets, especially between couples and which one partner shares with the counselor in confidentiality, can have a significant impact on the relationship and the outcome of the counseling process. Through this week's reading, I have learned that counselors are required to uphold the ethical responsibility of confidentiality and keep to themselves such secrets (Bass & Quimby, 2006). I previously thought that therapies should share what they get to know from couples to promote openness and communication.

I was surprised that I would be violating my ethical duty by revealing information shared by one partner to the other in couples counseling. One of the issues that could be intimidating is that of working with minors who associated with a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth[GRH5] . From ethical challenges in professional practice videos, Jennifer Gess shares her experience and having to withhold information relating to her client's gender identity until a time when she felt the parents were ready to receive such news for their child (Laureate Education, 2018). Such an experience would be intimidating, considering that the client in the case was a minor with parents allowed to access any information that the client shared with the counselor.

In working with couples and families, one of the issues [GRH6] that I think will be challenging will be the act of balancing one party right to confidentiality with the partner's right to access information. In describing issues relating to infidelity, Butler et al. (2010) note that "when confronted with infidelity secrets, therapists encounter tension between the offending spouse's privacy and confidentiality rights and the non-offending spouse's right to relationship choice, which entails access to all relationship-relevant information." [APA: Note that you'll need to include a page or paragraph number in parentheses after the quote, per APA guidelines for using direct quotations.]I feel that balancing such ethical dilemmas would be a challenge considering the need for the non-offending partner's right to information and the need to uphold confidentiality for information shared in secrecy. To incorporate ethics into my professional development, I will keep updated with all ethical codes provided by the different regulatory bodies, including the APA and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT).

Of the four situations described in the ethical challenges in professional practice videos, I would have handled the situation that Stephanie Scott found herself in differently. Rather than acting shocked and finally walking out of the room when she found one of her clients sited on her couch, I would have diffused the tension and the emotions by acting welcoming and happy to see all the visitors (Laureate Education, 2018). I believe that Dr. Scott's reaction made the incident more pronounced to the other visitors.

Hi Christine! It's nice to see you on my schedule today. How are you doing?

It looks like we've got a draft a new discussion post today. Since you've not specified any focus for my feedback, I'll go ahead and include comments on the issues that I feel will be among the most helpful for you to consider as you revise.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to [email protected].

Alright, let's get started!

It looks like this sentence might be missing a bit of content at the end, as the thought is not yet complete.

Grammar: Since you're writing about the ethical dilemmas that belong to or are experienced by this kind of counselor, a more accurate wording would be "for a counselor". Does that seem to work with your meaning?

Idea Development/Organization: This idea (and thus the paragraph) feels a bit unfinished. I want to know, and what do you think now? If the answer to that question is found in the preceding sentence, I recommend reorganizing your content so that your previous belief comes first and your new idea comes after. This creates more of a flow for your reader, helping them to see yourwhole thought process in order.

Organization& Cohesion: As a reader, I'm not sure how the different ideas in these two sentences relate to each other. Remember that each body paragraph should be focused on fully explaining a single, main idea. Here, I'm not yet sure what that idea is. It could be that you need to more explicitly draw the connection between these two sentences; or, it could be that they belong in different paragraphs.

Flow: This seems like the second potential challenge that you're brining up. Is that correct? If so, to create better flow, I recommend adjusting the language to indicate to the reader that you're moving on to a further point in your list of potential challenges. Something like, "another issue that I think will be challenging..." The use of "another" indicates that you're adding another item on to the list of points.

Organization & Cohesion: This seems like another spot where you're switching topics in the middle of a paragraph. Could this be its own paragraph? One thing to consider is that there is a whole question dedicated to this topic in the discussion post prompt.

Idea Development: Say a bit more about this. What do you mean by "more pronounced", and how did Dr. Scott's reaction make it so?