Ethical Issues Within Counseling Groups - Coursework Example

Ethics in Counseling Groups Cheryl A. Figueroa Liberty Ethics in Group Counseling This research paper will explore various ethical issues that are in play within group counseling. These issues are strictly unique to group therapy. In-group counseling, there are set of ethical standards and codes that a counselor should adhere too in the process of their profession. The counselor is expected to follow these standards from the beginning in order to ensure that their job is effective. The ethical codes in-group counseling is expected to ensure that the people involved get the best out of the sessions. The codes stipulate the expectations from the counselor as well as the counselor. The paper will go ahead to compare this ethical issues with those of individual or personalized counseling. Moreover, personal counseling can be sensitive in the sense that individuals are more explicit with the counselor and therefore there is need to be sensitive to the issues in play. However, this should not make sensitivity to group counseling less significant. The paper will then outline the reasons as to why therapist would prefer working with a group therapy to individual counseling or indivdual counseling over group therapy. Introduction Group counseling is a format of therapy that uses issues of personal growth based on interpersonal interaction and association. The group interactions help individuals develop and build relationships and get feedback on how they experience with one another. Group therapy is very essential especially to individuals who want to make changes to their lives. In this kind of counseling, the therapist works with multiple individuals. On the other hand, indivdual counseling gives an individual an opportunity to open up confidentially with their therapist concerning their personal concerns and issues. Individual counseling focuses more on individual growth where the therapist and the individual work closely to discuss personal and confidential issues in order to reach agreed goals and objectives. Ethics can be defined as principles and standards that are applied in different professions. Ethical issues in Group Counseling Group counseling involves psychiatric care for several people who meet with one or more therapist. The therapist uses collaborative and integrated approach to help a multitude of clients at the same time. According to Clark (1989), group counseling can be termed to be more successful than individual counseling considering the fact that several people can be attended to simultaneously. With group counseling, individuals are able to acquire multiple skills from other peoples experiences and insight. While practicing group counseling, there are codes of ethics that need to be followed. These ethics help in making the session successful and effective. Kivlighan and Tibbits (2012) state that the outcome of counseling sessions is directly determined by how much emphasis is given to codes of ethics. Group leaders/Therapist For any group to be successful, the first thing is to select a leader. This leader should be well informed and educated on matters regarding group leadership. They should also be pursuing education on counseling from organizations such as American Counseling Association (ACA) or Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW). As a leader of the group, there is so much expectation and therefore there should be committed to the leadership of the group and be ready to take pressure. For the success of the group, the leader has a responsibility to offer moral support to the rest of the group members. They should therefore be emotionally available to their groups. Weld and Eriksen (2007) say that a group leader should show empathy and compassion to the group members as this helps them in improving their situation. Screening and group size This is involves a therapist analyzing the prospecting members of the counseling group on individual basis. This process guarantees the therapist that they only work with individuals whose needs and issues relate with the intended goals as well as the objectives of the counseling group. Newburger (1998) says that the benefit of counseling session will only be achieved if the members of the group share common problems and goals. Therefore, screen is a form of synchronization that ensures that members have a common ground. This is also important for the counselor as it will familiarize them with the personal needs of each member of the group and therefore a proper approach will be deployed will deal with the individual in the group. Kottler (2012) adds that initial overview of each members profile gives a therapist an opportunity to come up with plans and objectives for each group member. The group leader has the responsibility to determine the size of the group, frequency of meeting and a plan showing duration for each session. ACA recommends that each group should have between 8-12 members as groups larger than this may be less effective. According to Ribner (1974), larger counseling groups may be intimidating to some group members as they may shy away from expressing themselves freely. The recommended sessions are between 12 and 16 and in each session, they get duration of 1 1/2 hours per session. With this allocation of time, each member of the group gets a chance to participate effectively in the group sessions. As a therapist screens the group members, they are able to exclude members with similar issues. This process is vital in the recovery of the group members as they are able to share same experiences. A research by Beest et al. (2012) shows that patients working as a group tend to recover fast due to shared pain and reduced aggressiveness and this is an aspect that lacks in individual therapy where individuals have to keep up with the pain. The nature of the group can either be opened or closed. There are groups that are mandated by the federal courts. Such groups have majority of members who have been mandated by the court to attend particular number of sessions or hours. The mandated or closed groups tend to change members over time depending on when the individuals finish the required sessions. The open groups on the other hand are made up of individuals who have willingly and voluntarily joined the group. Working with open groups can be more effective as the leader is able to monitor their progress unlike closed or mandated groups where it might be hard to make a follow up. Ethics in group counseling Confidentiality is the right given to the group members to make them feel that whatever is discussed and said in the group remains in the group. For a group to be effective, the group leader should make sure that the group members portray high level of confidentiality. Ponton and Duba (2009) say that confidentiality in group therapy applies to both the leader of the group as well as the group members. In the case of individual therapy, the case is a bit different as confidentiality is so much dependent on the therapist who has to guarantee the individual that details discussed in the sessions are not taken outside the sessions. Informed consent The group leader has the mandate to explain to the group members about their rights as members of the counseling sessions. Details pertaining participation, objectives and activities of the group should be well explained to the group members. If by any chance one the members see it hard to accept the conditions or the circumstances around the group counseling, they have the freedom to withdraw from the group. The same case applies to individual counseling only that in individual counseling, the activities and objectives might be oriented towards specific personal growth other than working on improvement of social skills. Managing and maintaining professional boundaries Group leader should work with high level of professionalism and avoid events and situations that may compromise these standards. Areas that may cause risk to this include counseling people with previous relationships and extending counseling activities beyond the stipulated parameters. The risks that come with this are that they may compromise the individuals view concerning the sessions. The group leader is at risk of losing confident and authenticity among the group members if they compromise their professionalism. In individual counseling, the same is encouraged but the difference is that individual counseling has more room for extending counseling. However, the relationship that a counselor develops between them and the patients and among the group members has a very great impact in the whole process. The outcome of the process is largely affected by how individual group members relate to each other. According to Thayer and Burlingame (2014) strong relationships between the group members has a positive impact in the general recovery of the patients. Similarly, the relationship a therapy sets with the group affects them based on the extent they choose to go. Group therapy or individual therapy Therapist may have preferences for either group counseling or individual therapy. There are number of factors that may cause this. Group therapy may seem as exhausting because of the high number of people that a therapist may work with. This discourages the therapist because it takes allot of their time to try to attend to each member. With individual counseling, a therapist only needs to work with a single person at a time. Paone, Malott and Maldonado (2008) says that the effectiveness of group therapy and individual therapy have been found to be equally effective only that they vary in terms of objectives and structure. Group therapy is limited with risks of conflict and misunderstanding among the members. Communication and personal differences are main contributing factors to this. According to Martinez-Moreno (2012), conflicts can arise in the initial stages of the process and this can be avoided by proper moderation in the beginning of the therapy. This lies mainly on the therapist to guide the members and help solve such conflicts. With group therapy, individuals are able to learn multiple skills based on experiences from the rest of the group members. This aspect lacks in the individual therapy. There are counselors who find the group members to be very resourceful and easy to work with for the extensive experiences they come with. Working in individual counseling mostly means that the therapy is the source of all the information and the individual puts very high expectation to the counselor. Personal reflection by the individual may be limited by this as they expect to be informed other than share their personal views and experiences Individual counseling ensures that a therapist is able to monitor progress and analyze the success of any session. This greatly affects the effectiveness of the counselor. The case is slightly different in the case of group counseling. The counselor is expected to attend to several people at the same time. Delivery and effectiveness of the counselor might be limited by this. Follow ups to individual members might be hectic in some levels and this may discourage the counselor. This generally affects the success of the counseling session. There are therapists who may find it difficult to deal with individuals for the fact that it involves close and personal revelation. For therapist that has a weakness in controlling their emotions and feelings, they are likely to compromise their professionalism as they express unreasonably too much empathy and compassion to their clients. Therapist with such weaknesses may prefer to work with group counseling. Group counseling has a degree of limit on what the group members are willing to share with the rest of the individuals undergoing the therapy. This would be easy to deal with for such therapists. Tjeltveit (n.d) states that therapists should be strong emotionally to ensure that they do not express their emotional breakdown. However, this should not be used to limit the therapists from showing any empathy to their clients. Therapists are human beings just like the people the work with. They have abilities to feel and express their emotions. Having this in mind, a therapist will ensure that they work in environments that will make them more effective. On the other hand, individuals have different reasons to go either with individual therapy or group therapy based on a number of factors. Mostly is based on the benefit one will get from the process. According to Baker et al. (2003), most individuals would go for a group due to their positive as well as negative interpersonal skills and how much benefit they will get from the process. Heir expectation leads to the decision on whether to go for group or personal therapy. Similarly, individuals would prefer a group therapy due to the attachment they get with the rest of the group members. The thing with group therapy is that it brings together people with the same experiences. This creates a bond between this individual as they try to recover together. Acceding to Harel et al. (2011) with group therapy, individuals are able to share experiences and out of this, they are able to give each other social support. Social support plays a key role in their recovery. Summary Group counseling involves sessions of more than one individual being attended by a single counselor. Individual consulting on the other hand is where a therapist gives attention to one individual at a time. Group counseling involves issues of screening the prospective members in order to ensure that they have the needs that are in line with the objectives of the group. Before any group starts the sessions, there should be a leader selected with necessary skills and knowledge to help the rest of the members. The ethical issues involved in group discussion include confidentiality, consent, and maintaining professionalism. The counselor has to make sure that they maintain the confidentiality as well as the group members. The counselor should explain to the group members the expectations of the counseling, the objectives, their rights, and any research that may be involved among other issues. While performing their duty, the counselor has to work with the highest level of professionalism possible. The success or failure of individuals participating in a group therapy seems to be collective unlike in individual therapy. The failure will lead to a subsequent effect on all the group members. This is mainly because each member has been attached to the group. According to Jackson (2011), the failure of members of a group therapy in a given task leads adverse effect on all e group members. This is mainly because each member has developed a group identity and hence sees them as one. Group counseling and individual counseling are both effective and only differ in terms of objectives and structures. Nonetheless, therapists have their preferences and may choose to work with either of the group over the other. Reasons for this vary but include extensiveness of group counseling, resourcefulness found in group counseling and personal emotional state of the therapist. In conclusion, both individual and group counseling are effective if the ethics and codes are put in place. References Baker, E., Burlingame, G., Cox, J., Beecher, M., & Leave, R. (2003) The Group Readiness Questionnaire: A convergent validity analysis Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 299-314 Retrieved May 6, 2015 Beest, I., Carter-Sowell, A., Dijk, E., & Williams, K. (2012) Groups being ostracized by groups: Is the pain shared, is recovery quicker, and are groups more likely to be aggressive? Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 241-254. Gupta, N. (2012). Team responses to non-contributing members: The effects of attribution and knowledge overlap. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 172-188. Harel, Y., Shechtman, Z., & Cutrona, C. (2011) Individual and group process variables that affect social support in counselling groups. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 297-310. Jackson, J. (2011). Intergroup cooperation as a function of group performance and group identity Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 343-356. Kivlighan, D. M., Jr., & Tibbits, B. M. (2012) Silence is mean and other misconceptions of group counselling trainees: Identifying errors of commission and omission in trainees knowledge structures. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 16(1), 14-34.  Martínez-Moreno, E., Zornoza, A., González-Navarro, P., & Thompson, L. (2012) Investigating face-to-face and virtual teamwork over time: When does early task conflict trigger relationship conflict? Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 159-171. Paone, T., Malott, K., & Maldonado, J. (2008) Exploring Group Activity Therapy with Ethnically Diverse Adolescents Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 285-302. Ribner, N. G. (1974). Effects of an explicit group contract on self-disclosure and group cohesiveness. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 21(2), 116-120  Thayer, S. D., & Burlingame, G. M. (2014) the validity of the group questionnaire: Construct clarity or construct drift? Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 18(4), 318-332.  Read More