Ethics in Counseling and Helping Professions
Ethics refers to a set of rules and moral principles for a group or an individual (Rovers, M., Malette, J., & Guirguis-Younger, M., 2018). Ethics defines the habit, character, and custom of a group or an individual. In counseling, ethics strengthens and supports the actions which are taken by the counselors in any counseling session. Professionally, counselors are expected to work and act in favor of the client as opposed to counselors’ best interest. Besides, the counselor should act professionally by defending the client’s rights, elevating the clients’ goals and objectives, and minimizing harm while maximizing benefits (Rovers, M., Malette, J., & Guirguis-Younger, M., 2018). The type of relationship between the client and the counselor strengthens the professionalism of the therapist. In case a counselor is not self-employed and is involved in ethical decisions, they should always consider acting in good faith for the organization or agency, the community, and, more so, their profession.
In this case study, there are some benefits to Emma and the counseling relationship. John has had a dual relationship with the client. Firstly, John knows Emma, who needs to be counseled since Emma’s husband has sold a car to John in the past. Secondly, Emma’s husband is working with John in an NGO where John is a volunteer. Furthermore, Emma’s son is one of John’s students in a professional class. Such kind of relationship can be described as a dual relationship. Dual-link occurs when multiple roles exist between the client and the therapist (Ghazali et al. 2017). For instance, the client happens to be the counselor’s neighbor, student, colleague at work, friend, family member or a business partner to the therapist. The dual relationship can be beneficial to both the client and the link in several ways. Based on the case scenario, Emma will benefit from her relationship with Johns, the counselor, because she will not feel traumatized in any way. In many instances, the therapist or clients feel traumatized when counseled by a new therapist since they have to discuss issues that may trigger or cause trauma. For the case of Emma, John knows her, and he will serve as much as possible to counsel her with less or minimized issues that might cause trauma to Emma. Assuming John is aware of the grief Emma is undergoing, then John will reduce if not avoid trauma-related problems.
Furthermore, the relationship between Emma and John can be beneficial to Emma since the two are church colleagues, and she can find it interesting to explore a given technique together. For instance, Emma can decide to work together with John to investigate her son’s strengths and weaknesses in his studies since John teaches him. By doing this, they could come up with comprehensive strategies that can be adopted for the success of her son. Emma’s son’s success is Emma’s success too.
Depending on various circumstances, dual relationships can be either ethical or unethical. (Ghazali et al. 2017). Here, the determining variable is the mutual trust existing between the two parties. The dual relationship has been denounced by most therapists, courts, ethicists, licensing boards, ethical committees, and educators. They claim that appropriate measures should be adopted to safeguard and protect clients against harmful exploitation by the therapist. Generally, clients can be easily exploited by the therapist using their powers for personal objective (Beaumont, E. A. (2017). On several occasions, clients seeking counseling are often vulnerable to exploitations hence the need for mutual trust between participating parties. Based on the case scenario, a dual relationship is likely to be harmful when; there is less objectivity. For instance, if John has been admiring Emma since it can happen, then it will result in an unsatisfactory judgment of the client; thus, the counseling session objective is missed. At the end of everything, Emma’s problem will not have been professionally solved since John is influenced by admiration.
Secondly, an unclear boundary between roles amongst the two parties can be a significant cause of harm to Emma and the counseling relationship. (Beaumont et al. 2017). Here, Emma and John may unintentionally get to discuss the counseling issues outside the office, for example, during church service. It might cause harm to Emma as the solution will not be arrived at because of continued discussion about a mental issue and can eventually lead to unpleasant experience about the subject. Also, the unknown end of the therapy might cause significant harm to Emma. In this scenario, John may become reluctant to end the treatment fearing a clumsy experience. If this happens, Emma will be significantly harmed as the issue will repeatedly affect her for long. Finally, the disparity in power may cause harm to a client (Beaumont, E. A., 2017). Here, John may mark and award Emma’s son poor grades during examinations while evaluating ethics since John teaches Emma’s son. Emma needs to be aware of such harm that might arise as a result of a dual relationship.