A Case Study Herlihy And Corey

Case Study In the case study presented by Herlihy and Corey (2015) entitled “Case Study 2: A Minor (?) Client” (p. 150), the counselor, Ben, engaged in individual therapy with a 17-year-old client, Tommy, who was brought to counseling by his parents. Tommy presented for counseling with diminished academic performance, verbal and physical altercations, changes in social behavior, and alcohol and drug use. Tommy’s parents highlighted that their son had become more defiant in his behaviors and believe that his substance issues are significant.
Ethical Violations and Consequences
One ethical violation that the counselor committed during the counseling process with the client concerns the counselor making a diagnosis based on the accounts of the
Instances of professional misconduct can cause harm to the client and the counselor could also face ethical consequences as well as legal consequences in that they could be sued for malpractice based on incompetence. In the case study presented by Herlihy & Corey (2015), the counselor displayed two such instances of professional misconduct in relation to competency. First, the counselor neglected to utilize any assessment inventories to accurately diagnosis the client, which could be based on the counselor lacking adequate skill in area of assessment as he only utilized the clinical interview that yielded minimal information. Second, the counselor neglected to include tailored interventions and strategies related to the client’s substance use issues that he assessed, which could be resulting from the counselor lacking competency in addressing substance use disorders. Both competency issues maintain the potential to violate the ACA Code of Ethics (2014) Standard “C.2.a. Boundaries of Competence” (p. 8), especially if the counselor if truly unqualified to accurately assess and diagnose the client as well as to treat the client for substance use