Ethical Concerns In Couple And Family Therapy

Ethics concerns in Couple and Family therapy.
Carolina Cuestas Gutierrez- S00059899
Master of Clinical Counselling - Australian Catholic University.

Working with couples and families has a significant role to play in clinical Counselling. This population, allow the therapist to encourage the challenging practice that involves different principles, risk and threats in order to provide a good service. Couple and Family therapy involves many members whose needs are in conflict, which implicates the importance to find the balance between the needs of each member. These multiple –relationships could bring different concerns, complex judgments and decisions in order to protect the welfare of the client. This circumstance can
The AAMFT code of ethical principles, mention therapists have the responsibility to promote the welfare of families and individuals. However, in some scenarios harmful consequences for some family members can be expected. (Dekkers, 2009). For example, in marital therapy, one of the clients interest will be to keep the relationship, but the other person could be expecting professional assistance regarding how to communicate to his or her partner that he or she, is determined to finish the relationship. This situation is a clear example of how the interest may diverge. The balancing interest of more than one client involves different concerns, which take the therapist to make decisions that will have an impact on the clients life. Ethical dilemmas will take the therapist to identify some ethical principles or values that influence the expected decision according to the framework of ethical practice.(Carr, 2012) Simple intuition cannot be used as the base of making ethical decisions instead, must be made after careful consideration and ethical justification of various potential actions, where the therapist must consider the possible ramifications of each decision (Margolin, 1982).Following this argument, it is important to recognize that in some cases, therapist could not have extended periods of time to make the ethical
Confidentiality derives from the primary ethical principles of autonomy and fidelity. The client has the autonomy to decide with information will share, who may access to that information and will trust that the therapist will not disclose any information. (Harrison,2011). Also, involve the intersection of law and ethics and demands handle sensitive information between clients (Wilcoxon et al, 2011). It is important to mention that confidentiality is a vital component of the therapeutic relationship, because allow the client to share experiences under a trusty enviorement The ACA standards stipulate that counsellors of couple and family therapy has the duties of define who is considered the client, and discuss expectations and limits of confidentiality.(Koocher, 2008). Some therapist will be considered the relationship between the members who assist to therapy as the client, or one of them as the primary client. However, it is important to clarify what confidentiality for the couple o family group means, how will be conserved during the process and how secrets and changes for systemic to individuals sessions will be considered in terms of confidentiality. (Janice,M. Rasheed, M. & Marley, 2010) One of the most common dilemmas in terms of confidentiality relates to Secrets. This are individual secrets, internal secrets, that involve more than one member of the family but they do not provided that secrets to others members.