Ethical Issues in Counseling

Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity

An ethical issue arises when the counselor failed to form a counseling plan with the client. Clients receive the most benefit from therapy when the client and counselor share common goals and an understanding of what their work together will entail (ACA, 2005). A similar principle, respect autonomy, is reflected in the APA ethics code, it states that “individuals have a right to decide how to live their lives” (APA, 2010). For example, if the client’s goal was to focus on developing skills to become a more responsible manager, then the sessions should have reflected this goal. Furthermore, the counselors’ failure to understand her own values and her attempt to impose her values on the client constitutes yet another ethical violation which undermined the clients’ autonomy (ACA, 2005). The counselor set goals for the therapy sessions based on her own values without considering the presenting problem from the client’s perspective. It appears that the counselor views the familial life as repressive and uses the sessions as a way to bring to light the causes of the repression. Ignoring the work related issues that could have serious consequences for the client including termination of her employment.

There may also be an issue of competing interest, for example, the client sought to improve her issues with taking initiative and being indecisive while the counselor is more interested in practicing new techniques that she has learned. The role of a professional is to meet the need of the client and refrain from pushing their own objective on the cl5tient (Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2008).

Multiple role relationships

The counselor entered into a multiple-role relat...

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...). The counselor acted ethically by ensuring that the client was in agreement with the termination and by referring her immediately to another professional (APA, 2002). However, the counselor should have evaluated the other professional’s ability to effectively treat the client (APA, 2002). If the client was not benefiting from one psychoanalyst it is unlikely that she will benefit from another, the counselor should have referred the client to a professional who has experience treating similar clients.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Perennial Classics, 1998.

Huxley, Aldous. "Hypnopaedia." Brave New World Revisited. New York: Harper, 1958. 85-95.

Morgan, S. Philip, Suzanne Shanahan, and Whitney Welsh. "Brave New Worlds: Philosophy, Politics, and Science in Human Biotechnology." Population and Development Review 31.1 (2005): 127-44.