Marriage/Family Therapy Ethical Dilemmas

Psychologists who participate in marriage/family therapy have to ensure they are doing things ethically and ensuring they are doing the best for each of their clients. Psychologists who live and work in rural communities must make sure they are being as careful as marriage/family therapy psychologists, but can run into other issues such as confidentiality and competence. Both kinds of therapy have their own sets of issues as well.
When providing counseling in a rural/community setting there are many unique ethical and legal situations that are not as prevalent in bigger communities. The smaller the communities the more likely the psychologist will have to deal with many situations instead of being able to specialize in a few types of counseling. This will make it important that the psychologist is competent and stays educated on many different fields APA ethical code 2.03. They also will run into issues with confidentiality APA ethical code 4.01. While they may provide all the correct documentation and information, they are likely to have relationships outside of their practice with their
clients and need to ensure that they have explained even further that they may be things they can not talk about in outside situations.
Marriage/family counseling as well as rural/community counseling can face ethical issues with multiple relationships APA ethics code 3.05. In marriage/family counseling it is important that the therapist makes it clear that they are looking out for the best interest for the family unit, as well as each of the members individually. In rural/community counseling it is likely that the psychologist will know most if not all of their clients outside of their therapy. This is similar to confidentiality, they need to be clear what can happen in therapy and what needs to stay in their other relationships.
When a psychologist works in marriage/family counseling they run in other situations that may not arise in individual counseling.
They have to define who the client is, this may come into situations of who is paying for therapy, but also who is being negatively affected. The APA ethical code 10.02 Therapy Involving Couples or Families covers most of the ways the psychologist should be clear with their patients. It also explains that the psychologist needs to be clear with informed consent with each of their patients involved.
Even though there are many intricacies to marriage/family counseling and rural/community counseling, there are many similarities between the two. It is important that the psychologist knows the laws and ethics they need to establish a clear and ethical practice. Even though there are differences, they do help explain the delicacy of both
situations.