Breaking Of Confidentiality

The ability to keep someone else’s deepest, darkest secrets is the cornerstone, if not the entire foundation of what therapy is built upon. Without trust and confidence counseling would most likely be an exercise in futility. However, just as American citizens 1st Amendment right to free speech and their inalienable right for the pursuit of happiness are not absolutes neither is a client’s right to 100% confidentiality. According to Koocher and Keith-Speigel, (2016) “…Confidentiality must yield to the greater welfare of the community, especially in the case of imminent danger” (p. 158). As such, if a client is contemplating hurting either themselves or someone else or reports child or elder abuse both the law and ethics codes require and approve of the interviewer breaking confidentiality.

He reports that it took place approximately 14 years ago when she was four and he was twelve. Having pedophiliac thoughts is neither a crime nor a reason to break confidentiality. But what about a sexual assault that occurred almost a decade and a half ago when both the perpetrator and victim were minors but are now adults? Should you report this? Will not breaking confidentiality most likely sever the therapist/client relationship? According to Koocher and Keith-Spiegel, (2016) “The general rationale on which such laws are predicated holds that certain individual rights must give way to the greater good of society or to the rights of a more vulnerable individual” (p. 154). Clearly this is such a case and as such should be reported to the proper