Ethical Obligation

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Counselors are more prone to be confronted with clients who are suicidal or dealing with mental health issues that are causing them to be a danger to themselves and others. Therefore, it is essential for counselors to have the knowledge and skills in order to be prepared when confronted with a crisis situation. In addition, counselors must be able to identify risk factors for their clients to avoid any wrongdoings that can cause detrimental consequences. Because it is the counselor's ethical obligation to protect clients from unnecessary risk of harm. Essentially, without the adequate training in suicide assessment and intervention, counselors can engage in practices that are not in alignment with the counseling ethical standard “do no harm”. …show more content…

One of those assessment tools is called “Is Path Warm”, which stands for Ideation, Substance abuse, Purposelessness, Anxiety, Trapped, Hopelessness, Withdrawal, Anger, Recklessness, and Mood changes (Watson & Flamez, 2015). The American Association of Suicidology created “Is Path Warm” and it is a procedure that I have found to be helpful when working with students who have shared or shown feelings of sadness or depression. The “I” in “Is Path Warm” stands for ideation. Some of the questions that counselors should be asking themselves when assessing their client’s ideation are “Does the client report active suicidal ideation or have they written about their suicide or death? Does the client report the desire to kill themselves?” The next letter stands for “Substance Abuse”. During this stage, counselors need to be able to identify if their client excessively uses alcohol or other drugs, or if they have begun using alcohol or other drugs. The third letter stands for Purposelessness. For example, counselors should be able to gauge whether their clients have loosed their purpose for living because that can be an automatic red flag. Next, the “A” stands for anger, which prompts counselors to ask themselves questions such as “Does the client express feelings of rage or uncontrolled anger?” “T” stands for trapped, this is where the counselor wants to assess whether the client feels like there is no way out of their current situation and if it worth living under this harsh circumstance. “H” stands for hopelessness. At this point the counselor must look out for pessimistic attitude from the client, in other words, a negative and hopeless attitude about the future, this may be a sign that they may be feeling depressed or even suicidal. “W” is the next

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