Modern Ethical Issues in Counselling

Modern Ethical Issues in Counselling
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Modern Ethical Issues in Counselling
Definition and Description of the Chosen Topic
By the launch of ethic codes by the American Counselling Association, the topic of the emerging ethical concerns in counselling has attained broadened attention, analysis and written literature. This set of ethical guidelines is meant to develop a relationship of trust and reliance between the counsellor and the client and to improve the poise of the field with extended professionalism. However, it exposes the potential ethical dilemmas faced by the counsellors, which can also impact the life of the client. The ethical conflicts are larger in the list than given in this piece of literature. The ethical issues in counselling, which have been attention-grabbing from the past, and have become more arduous in the current age, including the concern of confidentiality, uncertainty while going on with LGBTQs, the potential merging of personal and professional life and professional outlook regarding human rights; analyzing these concerns can improve the approach of a counselor and positively affect the life of the client, with a learning of how to build a welcoming and trustworthy counsellor/client relationship in this field.
Existing Literature
Stoll, with his fellow researchers, has raised the issue of confidentiality as an ethical issue in counseling in 2020. It has become one of the biggest emerging counseling concerns, particularly because we are living in the age of computer technology. Security of private information is essential to build the bond of trust between the counselor and the client. If sometimes, the process needs to record or observe a conversation or information, the client must know it, according to Stoll (2020). Confidentiality is, however, not a new ethical concern in this field. In 1984, Goodyear and Sinnett raised alarms regarding data storage, analysis, processing and sharing through technology. According to them, the advent of computers in the field of counseling has made private information more vulnerable to leakage and misuse. Both scholars presented their worries around confidentiality decades ago when computer technology was in its infancy. In the current age, it has reached its peak, and all professions use tech-based gadgets and the internet to proceed with their clients. Thereby, the risk of security has risen because hackers can steal information from the World Wide Web and use it as they want (Stoll et al. 2020). Although this ethical issue has not to the weekend the tie between the counsellor and the client to a great extent because technology has prevailed in personal life as well, and people consider it convenient to be consulted online; it demands its solution to enable counselors to safeguard themselves and promote trustworthy relationships with clients.
Bhola and Reguram (2016) invite attention to another noteworthy ethical dilemma faced by counsellors, which is their uncertainty when working with queer minority groups like lesbians, Gay, intersex and transgender. Similar types of uncertainty occur when the counselling process the case of relationship abuse. This creates a challenging situation for the practitioner to build a reliable bond with the client. Also, it creates complications regarding the disclosure of the information because queer people need even more confidentiality than others for being vulnerable to verbal violence. Many other researchers like Perez and Lee-Barber (2018) have faith in the idea that the understanding of the cognitive-developmental model of ethical competence is helpful for counsellors to overcome this conflict while handling queer people from society. They also recommend outspreading this model to deal with other ethical dilemmas for the counsellors so that they may bring the concept of counselling to its true purpose.
Drake (2020) discusses another ethical issue in counselling while encompassing the implication in other areas of life and professions like parenting. According to him, managing personal and professional life separately is also a remarkable topic while discussing the ethical challenges faced by counsellors. It means that whatever happens in their personal life must not impact their behavior, thought, action and concentration as their professional responsibility. It is comprehensible when we review the counselling between adults and children; the adults may not react to the children’s questions and actions as per their emotional status, but according to their parental obligation to deal with young ones most effectively (Drake 2020). In other fields like psychology, the counsellor is ethically restricted to act as per what is going in his/her life. Keeping all potential thoughts and emotional conflicts aside, the primary focus must be the welfare of the client.
A number of researchers like Chaney and his assistant scholars seem interested in evaluating the human rights considerations within the frame of ethical conflicts in counseling. The topic of human rights is multi-dimensioned and rears various issues; one of them is the misunderstanding while recognizing the client. For example, a psychiatrist has to handle a patient who mi...