Ethical Dilemma In The Workplace

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An ethical dilemma a social worker might have to face would be a client who is currently self harming themselves. A situation involving self-harming that a social worker might have to face could be if a client admits to their social worker that they’re always sad and unhappy, and that they help themselves feel better by self-harming. The social worker has been seeing this client for years, and only now is the client opening up to them. This can become an ethical dilemma because more than one social work values are in conflict (Hick, 2010). This dilemma would be both a absolute and approximate dilemma, as it conflicts with more than one of the values mentioned in the CASW Code of Ethics (as cited in Hick, 2010), and also conflicts with personal values (Hick, 2010).
One of the ethics that this situation would effect is the first value of the CASW Code of Ethics, which is respect for dignity and worth of the person (as cited in Hick, 2010). Since the client feels like this is a way to help themselves cope, you don’t want take away their right to harm themselves. This could also be influenced by personal beliefs in the sense that you don’t believe that harming one’s self is an effective coping mechanism, but you can’t tell them that what they’re doing isn’t helping them because they believe that it is. …show more content…

Since this client took so long to trust the social worker, if the social worker tells anyone else about how the client self-harms, they could break the trust of the client. In this situation though, since the client is self-harming, they could potentially kill themselves. Since there is always that possibility, the social worker should break confidentially in order to get the client the help needed, especially since self-harming can often be linked to depression or other mental

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