Identify in hierarchical order the four most important client rights that you believe a
counselor has an obligation to protect and describe how you will incorporate these rights
into your professional practice.
Responsibility to Warn and Protect
1) Identify the factors that you will consider in order to determine your “duty to warn” and
“duty to protect” responsibilities as a counselor. Create a scenario for each of these two
situations and describe how you will apply specific factors to make a decision about how to
proceed. Scenarios should be complex and include sufficient ambiguity that reasonable
counselors might make different decisions about how to precede. Identify the ethical issues
that you considered in making your decision.
Client Record-Keeping
1) Discuss how client record-keeping is related to competent, ethical practice. Identify the
components of a clinical record that you believe are most important for a) protecting the
client’s right to a professional standard of care and b) protecting the counselor from
liability.
Ethics in counseling
The four important client rights a counselor should oblige include informed consent,
prompt service, confidentiality and respect. These rights are incorporated in my professional
practice by ensuring that I adhere to them when I meet a client. It is in the codes of ethics for a
professional like me to always render my services by ensuring that I respect my clients, offer
prompt services, ensure that what I discuss with the clients is kept confidential and in ensuring
that I get informed consent from the parties concerned (Franklin & Marshall college, 2013).
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It is the responsibility of the counselor to protect and warn. Factors to consider whether to
warm or protect when counseling include, the risks involved, the benefits involved, the
willingness of the client to participate among others. For instance, incase an addict approaches a
counselor, the willingness of the client to participate will help the counselor to warn about the
risks involved. Therefore, for this to be achieved, the counselor will have to apply informed
consent to inform the client about the treatment or any side effects of drug use. The counselor
must also play the duty of protecting information of the clients. The ethical consideration here is
confidentiality.
Record keeping is important in counseling. It is a sign of competence as well as
adherence to ethical standards. Important clinical components for protecting the client’s right to
a professional standard of care include client identifying information, primary care physician,
and information on most recent physical examination (Franklin & Marshall College, 2013).
Clinical records for protecting counselor from liability include intake sheet, signed informed
consent form, diagnosis and prognosis, documentation of a mental health assessment, the costs
and the type of therapies.
The ethical issue I found interesting and challenging in my future career as counselor is
about informed consent. This is a sensitive issue requiring a lot of care to ensure that a client and
a counselor move on same direction. Therefore, I will require additional skills, knowledge, and
experience especially to deal with issues to do with disclosure of information and informing the
clients about video recoding about the sessions. An example of access is where a session with a
client is video recorded and without the consent of the client. To avoid this situation or conflict,
when the client arrives, he or she will be consulted on whether to record the session or not. The
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opinion of the client will be respected and the information will be kept confidential and only
given to third party upon the clients request.
Reference
Franklin & Marshall college. (2013). Client rights and responsibilities in counseling.