Actions are taken by a counselor in difficult scenarios.
In their daily lives, counsellors encounter clients from different backgrounds, who present diversified values, needs, and beliefs. Counsellors, on the one hand, have personal beliefs and values that could be relevant or irrelevant to the clients. Value imposition is the act of counsellors to dictate their clients’ values and behaviour, by passively or actively influencing the clients to adopt their attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs. This issue has presented ethical challenges in the counselling sector, whereby some people feel that counsellors should ensure their clients’ independence in decision making. The role of counsellors is to ensure that clients meet their goals by respecting the diversity of clients. During group events in counselling, the counselor must provide that no group member imposes their values on the other members. In avoiding this act of imposing values on clients, counselors should be aware of their values; they must also understand their clients’ beliefs and values. After understanding the two sides, the counselors should be honest with themselves, which helps cultivate self-awareness, thus avoiding the imposition of one’s values on the clients.
NAADAC ethical standards recommend a counselor to ensure autonomy, whereby a client is given the freedom to choose his/her destiny. This implies that the counselor’s role is to provide guidance, but the ultimate decision lies in the client; thus, the counselor should not impose their values on the clients. In the ACA guidelines, five core values restrict the functionality of counselors. About imposing values on clients, a counselor must honor diversity by embracing an approach that promotes diversity (Kaplan 112). This implies that a counselor must ensure that their clients’ values are not deteriorated; they should give guidance on the best approaches.
Actions are taken by a counselor in difficult scenarios.
Counselors face clients with opposing values, and according to ACA regulations, imposing values on a client is illegal. When a counselor has a conflict of values with a client, they are not to refer the client, because this could be an act of rejection towards the client. Faced with numerous societal challenges, clients require the love and care offered by the counselors (Lloyd‐Hazlett and Victoria 98). The counselor should thus take several actions in ensuring that they attend to the clients despite their difference in beliefs and values. First, the counselor should explore themselves and establish if their actions are justifiable. In this exploration, the counselors should analyze the possible barriers that could hinder sufficient work with the clients. After establishing the potential obstacles, the counselor should then determine the necessity of the barrier. In this step, the counselor should consider if their values must be imposed onto the clients (Bor and Carina 263). The counselor should then understand the vulnerability of clients, which demands that they should not be judged. The counselor should then seek supervision to learn effective skills and ways of dealing with such clients. Finally, after working with the client for a long time, without any evident results, the counselor should now consider referral. Generally, with opposing values, the counselor should seek supervision or consult with more-skilled counselors to avoid a conflict of values. The inability to maintain objectivity in values is a problem of the counselor and thus should not affect the client through unnecessary referrals or imposition of values.
Legislation and Government Policies
The counseling profession in the US is regulated by the various Licensing Boards, empowered by the US government, through ACA. Counselors are prohibited from upholding discriminative gestures like refusing to attend to someone with opposing values, religion, or race. In ethical decision making situations, counselors are required to follow the ACA guidelines by applying the ACA Code of Ethics. In Court Systems, the Statutory Law, Constitutional, and Common Laws can be used to judge counselors. Both the Federal and State governments can make decisions that affect the counseling profession, which implies the regulations could differ from one state to another (Kresojević 136). The US government requires counselors to maintain their professional growth through continuing education. According to the civil liability Act, the counselors can be found guilty for failing to exercise effective or due care on their clients. Negligence and Malpractice could be judged under professional conduct regulations. When dealing with minors, counselors must seek consent from parents, except on some special occasions when a minor requires urgent care.
Specific Factors to consider referring a Client
Counselors are faced with some situations that could lead to the referral of their clients. Referring to clients could be viewed as discrimination or bias against a client. For this reason, it critical to consider various factors before coming into a consensus of referring to a client. First, when a client has other needs, it is wise for the counselors to consider referring them to other counselors. For instance, after undergoing full treatment on addiction, but in the end, the counselor realizes that their client needs guidance on an issue like a relationship. After evaluating the need for another counselor, the client could be referred to another counselor. Secondly, the counselor could lack specific skills that could prompt referral. However, this decision is made in consultation with the client. When a counselor lacks some skills, it is critical to consider referring the client to avoid misinformation or inadequate treatment process. Thirdly, when the counselor realizes that they have a relationship with the client, beyond the professional grounds. When the client and the counselor stay for a long time without developing a therapeutic relationship, additionally, when the counselor consents that the process has not witnessed any progress from the client, he may decide to refer the client to a more skilled counselor. Finally, when the counselor establishes that the client needs a specialist, he or she may choose to refer them to a specialist according to the client’s needs.
Steps to Take When Referral is not an Option
During the counseling process, the counselor could encounter scenarios that do not require referrals. In these scenarios, the counselor should consider the following steps. First, the counselor should reframe their questions or their counseling procedure to evaluate if the client could adapt to the new questions. Secondly, the counselor should then consider consultations with other specialists for guidance during the counseling process. If the consultations fail to work, the counselor should request a supervisor to help evaluate the client (Bor and Carina 263). The consultation and the supervised steps are crucial in the development of an ethical framework for understanding the clients’ needs. For this reason, supervision and consultation act as referral technique, only that the client is treated by the same counselor, using knowledge and skills obtained from other counselors.