Counselor Ethics and Responsibilities - Essay Example

Counselors have the responsibility of ensuring that their clients can fully exercise their social, economic, and personal independence. It is also important for counselors to act and maintain the ethical standards that govern their profession. A counselor should ensure they incorporate autonomy with their clients. Autonomy refers to the right of a patient making their own decisions. Thus a counselor should ensure that they give all and correct information to the patient regarding their condition from the start to the end of the treatment plan. It is also important to include the patients in the treatment process and seek their insight and consent about certain treatment procedures.

Non-maleficence refers to the duty of a counselor to ensure that there is no exploitation of the client financially, sexually and financially (American Counseling Association 2005). The counselor should also ensure that they are physically fit to provide medical services to a patient thus they should healthy wise and emotionally. It is important for the counselor to ensure that they have a proper billing system, and mostly to advise patients to have medical insurance to avoid financial exploitation. Beneficence states that a counselor should be committed to promoting the clients health. Thus a counselor should ensure that they are professionally capable of handling a patient and before reaching serious decisions should also ask other professionals for advice. A counselor should also ensure that they are under the supervision of a professional health governing body to ensure that they are operating under the right circumstances and posse the necessary skills.

Justice refers to the fair, unbiased, and provision of adequate services for all patients (American Counseling Association 2005). Counselors should ensure that all their patients receive proper care and services without any form of discrimination. To ensure that the patients receive quality services, counselors should have questionnaires failed by patients to describe their experiences. This will help in identifying inconsistencies and fixing them to ensure everything they receive impartial services. The fidelity ethics principle calls for counselors to be honest and loyal to their clients and patients. Thus every counselor should ensure that their patients have accurate information about everything they need to know about their health. They should not withhold any information or disclose any information to a third party without the consent of the patient.

Informed Consent

Informed consent is a document that provides a client with the right advice about the federal and state laws, the policies of their counselor, and the rights that the clients have (Corey et al. 2014). After reading and agreeing to the terms the client's signs and keeps a copy while other copies remain with the service provider. This document is important as it protects both the counselor and the client. The document contains all information regarding the counselor and their health facility including all their professional skills. The right to privacy is the section that a client signs concerning the confidentiality of information. This document states that no information will be shared with another party except when the client reports on sexual and physical abuse, is threatening to commit suicide, when the client agrees and signs the information release form and when the law requires the information. Billing is a crucial element, and the informed consent document helps protect the client from exploitation. The article informs clients about the services that the counselor charges and how the payment method and collection is done.

Duty to Protect and Warn

Every counselor has a responsibility to warn and protect other people from the potential violence that their clients might cause. This law describes the steps that a counselor needs to take to protect probable victims from their patients. These steps include hospitalization of a patient, warning the victims or take actions against the potential harm the patient might cause to ensure it does not happen (American Counseling Association 2005). However, there are certain factors a counselor should consider before exercising his duty of protecting and warning. A counselor should consider the legal, clinical, and ethical responsibilities they have to the patient. A counselor has the right to protect their patient and keep the information between them confidential (American Counseling Association 2005). Sometimes warning a victim about probable harm may lead to the disclosure of information which will go against the ethical and legal laws of professionalism. Thus the counselor has to find a way of warning and protecting their patients without actually disclosing any sensitive information unless the law requires them to do so.

A counselor should also consider the consequences that might occur if he or she warns a victim. While warning the victim, the counselor might put the client at risk of harm, possible legal actions against the client. On the other hand, if the counselor does not warn the victim and chooses to be loyal to his client it might also cause harm to the victim and also cause direct harm to the client. Thus a counselor should at all time look at the ethical considerations before acting. However, Anders and Terrell (2006) state that counselors mostly focus on the idea of not breaching their client's confidentiality. It is therefore important to focus on the right of life of a third party than the loyalty to a client since trust can be regained while life cannot. Johnson & Koocher (2011) suggests that counselors should follow the 2 x 2 factorial matrixes to make sound ethical decisions. The 2 x 2 factorial matrix states that counselors should weigh the risks and benefits of warning the victim versus not cautioning the victim about the impending harm.

In some cases, counselors need to look into the legal standards and statutory laws within their locality to ensure that they are not going against the laws. Some cases also call for the counselor to seek proper advice from a legal professional or an attorney to ascertain that they make the right decisions about their responsibility of protecting and warning. When the counselor decides to notify the victim, they should first talk to the patient to get a signed consent from the patient. In cases when the patient refuses to give permission, the counselor should warn the victim in the presence of the patient to ensure that they still maintain their trust, this also helps the therapist to gauge the patient's impulse behavior.

Record Keeping

The American Psychological Association, the federal and state laws posit that counselors should maintain appropriate records of their client’s services (APA, 2002). Records help the counselor and the client in service provision, ethical and legal considerations, health progress, and treatment plans. A therapist needs to keep all the records of a client including their needs, personal information interventions, and information from each session. Records are important since they provide detailed data about the patient and helps in future references. Records protect the clients right to standard professional care as the counselor will use the information provided to decide the most suitable treatment method. Counselors are also able to regularly review the counseling services according to the patient and analyze if they are really helpful. The assessment also helps the counselor seek better alternatives for the clients. Record keeping also protects the counselor from liability through ensuring that all information is documented revoking of the counselor license in the event of Health Fund Audit. In cases of complaints against the counselor, records provide accurate information about the client care.

Self Care

Self-care refers to the personal responsibility of maintaining one's health and participation in activities that promote individual wellness. The ACA states that a counselor needs to be healthy emotionally, psychologically, and physically so they can take care of the clients within the required standards (American Counseling Association 2005). To maintain a healthy balance between my professional and personal life I will set my goals and priorities to ensure that I do not get conflicted about what comes first. I will also make a schedule for all work activities and ensure that they are all completed in time. It is also important to create boundaries between work and personal life. All personal matters should stay out of the office and solved at home or far from the office. This will help in ensuring that personal life does not interfere with work matters. To guarantee that I maintain a healthy lifestyle I have to enroll in the nearest local gymnasium where I exercise thrice in a week. All weekends I visit different social places to ensure that I socialize with people as it is important to maintain a healthy friendship network. I also enrolled in an advanced counseling class to develop my skills and knowledge about my profession. I have considered meditation as a self-care activity, but I have not managed to start since I have not yet identified a suitable place to start. Sometimes I get caught up in work that I skip my exercise and classes session. Missing my work out sessions and classes is a red flag that I need to assess myself care efforts to ensure that I am fit to attend to my clients. It is important for counselors to get counseling since the work sometimes is overwhelming and counselors to have problems they go through. Counseling helps them get in touch with their emotions and seek to ensure that they get better to be able to treat clients professionally.

Advocacy means helping and assisting people to find the best in themselves. The American Counseling Association is calling for all members to help in spreading the message of not supporting the people on the current health care legislation. However, I believe since people lack knowledge about the details and importance of specific professions in the community they need proper information to increase their awareness. Since I am a member of several social groups in my town, I will seek to educate the members of my community about the importance of the Affordable Care Act on mental health coverage. To ensure that everyone in the society gets the message I intend to send I will arrange for days that I will hold educational sessions with all the social groups I participate in. We will also hold a huge event with the help of my colleagues and the people in the community and seek for the presence of the senator as a guest. During this event, we will show educational materials about mental health and the importance of medical coverage.

Counselor Values

I feel strongest about the issue of abortion and extramarital affairs. I value life, and I oppose any abortion thoughts since children are just innocent people despite the circumstances that led to their conception. Second, I honor all my vows, and it is wrong to go against marriage vows despite the problems that may occur. The ACA state that one of the counselors values lies in saving marriages and restoring relationships. The values also believe that a child deserves the love of the father and the mother. Children also need to be raised by both parents. Children need their parents love and grow well when raised by both parents. According to the NAADAC, counselors are pro life and should help individuals who wish to end someone’s life (Storie, Kuehn & Mikell 2005). In the case of the 19-year old, I would advise her to keep the baby. I would tell her that whatever happened was not her doing and the baby is an innocent and deserves a chance at life. It is okay for her to feel like she does not want it but with time as the baby gets to grow, she will feel the connection. I will also tell her to listen to the reasons why her parents are against the abortion. It is also important to offer her other options like adoption instead of getting an abortion.

In the case of extramarital affairs, I will advise the couple to first talk about their problems in front of each other. It is important for both of them to talk about their feelings in front of each other uninterrupted. Second I would ask them to state why they feel like they need to go out of their marriage to solve their problems. Since the couple was once in love which led to the legal union, I would ask them to write a list of ten things they feel great about when their partner does. I will make them commit to doing the exercise together each day for the next two weeks to see if their differences will disappear. I will also tell them about the dangers of extramarital affairs and ask them to commit to each other.