Counseling & Personal Belief System

The ethical practice for which I anticipate little difficult is that of maintaining patient confidentiality. In the ACA Proposed Standards of Practice and Ethical Standards (1992), this ethic, under Section B, is essentially described as follows:

Professional Counselors must keep information related to counseling services confidential unless disclosure is in the best interests of clients, is required for the welfare of others, is in response to obligations to society, or is required by law. When disclosure is required, only information that is essential is revealed.

Patient confidentiality accords with my personal belief that in order for therapy to be successful, a climate of trust must be established and maintained. In fact, I whole-heatedly agree with the sentiments expressed by Peterson and Nisenholz (1994) in their discussion of the ethical standard of confidentiality.

Specifically, the authors state that one of the strongest fears held by clients seeking counseling is that somehow their personal problems (

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ronger. These morally stronger duties are spelled out in the ethical standards as times when disclosure serves the best interest of clients, or is required for the welfare of others, is in response to obligations to society, or is required by law. I understand the disclosure is necessary if a client is going to engage in self-destructive behavior such as suicide, or if he or she intends to kill or harm another member of the community. And I would have no problem disclosing under these circumstances whether or not disclosure was required by state law. I also understand the importance of disclosure in situations where one has an obligation to society; for example, if I had a client with a communicable disease which he or she was giving to others as part of the prevailing psychopathology, I would consider it my obligation to disclose this information. I would have no problem doing so because the duty to increase or protect the health of the community outweighs the duty to respect the confidentiality of records. In other words, I understand that ethical standards often must be prioritized and if a violation of one serves another higher standard, then the higher standard must be served. I realize that these are not black-an
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Approximate Word count = 1414
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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