Working as a counselor can quickly become a demanding job. It goes without saying that you will become privy to information about your clients, possibly as far as their worries, anxieties, and secrets. Sometimes, the information and stories you hear can be daunting, but confidentiality must always be maintained, as this is one of the foundational ethical principles in counseling.
The best counselors understand the need to create a bond of respect and trust with their clients, as it is foundational to a productive and safe care process for both parties. Aside from developing trust with the clients, there are several other reasons why ethical considerations are so important in counseling today.
The American Counseling Association (ACA) has taken it upon itself to create a body of established ethical considerations that the professionals involved should be guided by. At all times and in the face of dilemmas, counselors should keep these ethics in mind and use them in guiding their course of action.
Here, we discuss these ethical considerations and how they all play out in providing an effective and safe care system for patients.
What is Counseling Ethics?
The idea behind ethical considerations in counseling is ensuring that all parties involved are accounted for. A good counselor knows to put clients first, respect everyone involved, work to meet a professional standard, build appropriate relationships, uphold integrity, and exhibit accountability. There are three major sections of professional considerations that counselors need to maintain. They are:
- A commitment to clients
- Ethics
- Good practice
These three categories apply to the standards by which professionals are held, the specific values, principles, and personal moral virtues that direct the work done, and the application of the counselors’ commitments to clients and ethics. As for ethics, they are drawn out from specific values, principles, and personal moral virtues.
Importance of Counseling Ethics
Ethics are very important in counseling. They provide a channel that protects the client’s and everyone’s welfare by clearly defining what is proper. Counselors, more often than not, are presented with sensitive and challenging subjects. Often, situations leave the client in a vulnerable state. It’s typically expected that counselors act ethically and adhere to an existing ethical framework.
Counselors have a duty of care to their clients, and as a result, they are expected to act in the best interest of clients, promoting their goals, protecting their rights, minimizing damage, and maximizing the good. Codes of ethics cut across different professions and industries. However, in the end, they are all concerned about professionals acting with integrity while relating to others.
Ethics are also great because, in situations where other standards are in doubt, professionals can look to ethics to define the route to follow. In the following section, we discuss the ethical considerations that counselors must always keep in mind while rendering their professional services.
Ethical Considerations for Counselors
Suppose you are faced with a sensitive situation in your role as a counselor. In that case, the following guidelines can help you evaluate how you can properly and successfully help your clients:
The Client-Counselor Relationship
Counselors need to ensure that they have the welfare of their clients at heart at all times. One way to ensure this is to establish clear boundaries so they understand what can be condoned in the relationship. Clients also need to be wary of the counseling process and how the set-out goals can be achieved.
Records should also be recorded and protected accurately and appropriately. Sexual and romantic relationships should not occur between the parties, as professional boundaries must always be maintained. Discussions around fee rates should also be had at the beginning to avoid misconceptions at the end of the day.
Confidentiality and Privacy
Counselors should ensure that maintaining client rights and privacy is a priority to them. Counseling relationships are built on trust, so counselors need to act responsibly during the partnership. Also, building trust entails telling the clients at the beginning that certain information about them will be shared with third parties when the need arises.
In situations where client behaviors indicate potential harm to self or others, counselors are required to disclose such to the appropriate parties. Finally, in cases where sessions are recorded or observed by third parties, clients should be asked for prior permission.
Professional Obligation
Considering the level of gravity the counseling profession entails, you must ensure that all your practices and treatments are based on research and practice acceptance. Counselors are also encouraged to offer pro bono work to clients in some situations.
Another aspect of professional responsibility is ensuring you are on track with accepted practice and education. The counseling practice is constantly evolving, and to maintain your awareness, you must ensure that you advance your education and learn about the evolving procedures in your field. Going for an Online Masters School Counseling at an institute like St. Bonaventure University will equip you for today’s practical realities.
Relationships With Other Professionals
Your interaction with other professionals within your network will also impact the level of services your clients have access to. The support you and your clients will get during your counseling practice depends on your network of healthcare professionals within your field. Sometimes, your job requires that you go beyond the scope your usual practice and provide your clients with general support. The level of success that you get in this regard will depend on your knowledge of additional services and the network of those you can reach out to. All working relationships with your peers should be built on respect.
Evaluation, Assessment, And Analysis
This is a crucial aspect of counseling, as the accuracy of the client’s assessment will determine their analysis and the treatment that will be appropriate to them. Without an accurate evaluation of a client’s situation, there’s a higher chance of failing to prescribe treatment. Take time to understand the different contexts of the client’s behaviors, beliefs, and cultural background. This will ensure that the treatment outcomes are directed toward the best possible result for the client.
Supervision and Training
Counselors also double as trainers and supervisors sometimes. Whatever capacity is required, it is important to create boundaries and promote ethical counseling behaviors. As a supervisor, you must maintain a professional relationship with your students and be accurate, honest, and fair in all your dealings. It is your duty to advance students and support their growth as budding counselors.
Publications and Research
Counseling is a career path that needs everyone’s output to keep moving forward. The only way there’ll be advancement is if you and other counselors get involved in more research in the field. To advance your knowledge and experience, ensure that you contribute to the knowledge base within the field and make periodic publications on your findings.
Use of Technology and Social Media
Technological advances today ensure that the changes and trends impact the way counseling interactions happen. Face-to-face counseling sessions are no longer entirely compulsory, and this has also caused new considerations in counseling services.
As a counselor in this new age, you must understand how these new platforms work and how to use them to serve your clients better. This new wave also means that you will have to pay more attention to privacy and confidentiality, as these are two major technology challenges today.
Handling Ethical Dilemmas
Finally, this aspect of ethical considerations must be addressed. Ethical issues affect all parties involved, so in situations where there are dilemmas, you, as a counselor, need to find a way to resolve them for the good of everyone involved. Ensure that you hold yourself and your colleagues accountable to high ethical standards. Be proactive, act and cooperate with the right bodies to conduct any required investigation.
In the next section, we will discuss how you can handle the ethical dilemmas you may face in your day-to-day counseling career.
How To Handle An Ethical Dilemma
It is not uncommon for you to face challenges in your day-to-day counseling practice. A lot of these challenges may not be evident from the start, but with enough analysis and evaluation, you can determine what exactly needs to be done in different situations. Challenges can be categorized as certain things: ethical, clinical, professional, legal, or a combination. Deciding where they fall into is usually the first step in resolving them.
Setting Boundaries
This is one of counselors’ most prominent ethical concerns, and it’s been the case for years. Setting boundaries is important because it helps you avoid developing inappropriate relationships with clients. This is not because you don’t care about them but because the duty of care and the need for privacy and confidentiality comes first. However, there may be times when emotional connections will develop between the parties, and it will be important to handle them properly without jeopardizing any party.
Counselors are advised against working with family, friends, and people they have preexisting relationships with. Doing this will ensure that boundaries can be set and maintained and eliminate any possibility of issues.
Handling Impartiality
People of different races, classes, cultures, religions, and beliefs go to counselors for their care needs. It’s fundamental for counselors to use the same level of professionalism with their clients, irrespective of where they come from.
Also, counselors go through personal issues like everyone else. However, it would help if you remembered that your problems must not cloud your thoughts when you are wearing the counselor’s hat. It would be best not to allow your issues to introduce prejudices and biases while interacting and providing care for your clients.
Handling Confidentiality Issues
Another major issue that counselors have to deal with is ensuring they maintain the utmost confidentiality with their clients. Personal information, recordings, and session notes must be kept safe and secure.
The only cases where this may be waived are when the counselor suspects immediate harm could befall the client or someone close to them. Otherwise, everything that happens in that session stays within the session.
How Ethical Considerations Can Be Transformed Into Effective Counseling
At the end of the day, the goal of every ethical consideration is ensuring that clients enjoy safe and effective care in the hands of their counselors. When ethics are introduced, there are a number of ways through which the experience will be transformed for clients and all parties involved in general. They include:
Multicultural Sensitivity
People from different places have different views on issues, including health care. Patients who come to counselors expect to get the best treatment possible. However, much more than the outcome is the means of getting there. Ethical considerations will ensure that counselors adapt treatment processes to meet the client’s values and expectations while also showing respect for their attitudes, beliefs, and general differences.
Ethical considerations highlight the need to equip yourself with the right education, knowledge, and skill to navigate sensitive issues you may encounter as a counselor. Ensure you consider race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, culture, and religion in all your dealings.
Flexibility
You will quickly discover that counseling is a profession that requires a good level of flexibility. What will make you a good counselor is your ability to create meaningful treatment plans that fit each client’s specific needs. It will not do you much good to have a “one size fits all” approach to all your dealings. Instead, be open to adaptability and use each client’s premises to define their care processes.
Also, some treatment options are better than others when considering specific disorders. Finding a way to match a treatment option to the specific stage of the client’s need is perhaps the most effective way to implement care techniques. And if, in the near future, a treatment plan is no longer effective, then you should be open to change and finding the best possible care route.
Self-Awareness
Finally, ethical considerations ensure that you become a very self-aware counselor. You’re able to separate personal issues from your work with your clients. Self-awareness helps you to curtail counter transference which will affect the outcome of your care plan with your patients.
When you can identify and effectively manage your response to personal issues, you will be less likely to react to things that ordinarily affect you during your relationship with clients. If you cannot control your responses, it will have detrimental effects on your therapy.
Self-awareness also helps determine how much information should be divulged to clients and when. Of course, there will be times when you may utilize personal insights and stories but following through with professional ethics will define where to start and where to stop.
Determining that counseling is the right career for you means you’re ready to comply with all the rules, practices, and professional requirements. The demands that a career in counseling puts on you can make it a worthwhile path to follow. The demand for qualified counselors is increasing across various settings, such as schools, clinics, hospitals, community organizations, and private practice, providing a range of fulfilling career options. By studying counseling, you become equipped to address mental health concerns and contribute to creating a healthier and more supportive society.
Ethical standards will require you to gain the appropriate education, knowledge, and skills all to ensure the best standards for handling clients’ care needs. To develop the right set of skills to serve your patients and community as a whole, you should go the extra mile to gain more experience. The peculiarities of counseling require you to be ready for the challenges of a constantly evolving industry like that of health care. Counseling is much more than a mere profession. It is a relationship and a route that allows everyone you come in contact with to reach their full potential and live an enjoyable life.