Section A for final Flashcards
A.1.a. P R
The primary responsibility of counselors
is to respect the dignity and promote
the welfare of clients.
A.1.a Primary Responsibility
A.1.b. R&D
Counselors create, safeguard, and maintain documentation necessary for rendering professional services. Regardless of the medium, counselors include sufficient and timely documentation to facilitate the delivery and continuity of services. Counselors take reasonable steps to ensure that documentation accurately reflects client progress and services provided. If amendments are made to records and documentation, counselors take steps to properly note the amendments according to agency or institutional
policies.
A.1.b Records and Documentation
A.1.c. C P
Counselors and their clients work jointly in devising counseling plans that offer reasonable promise of success and are consistent with the abilities, temperament, developmental level, and circumstances of clients. Counselors and clients regularly review and revise counseling plans to
assess their continued viability and
effectiveness, respecting clients’ freedom
of choice.
A.1.c Counseling Plans
A.1.d. SNI
Counselors recognize that support networks hold various meanings in the lives of clients and consider enlisting the support, understanding, and involvement of others (e.g., religious/spiritual/community leaders,
family members, friends) as positive resources, when appropriate, with client consent.
A.1.d. Support Network Involvement
A.2.
A.2. Informed Consent in the Counseling Relationship
A.2.a. I C
Clients have the freedom to choose whether to enter into or remain in a counseling relationship and need adequate information about the counseling process and the counselor.
Counselors have an obligation to review in writing and verbally with clients the rights and responsibilities of both counselors and clients. Informed consent is an ongoing part of the
counseling process, and counselors appropriately document discussions of informed consent throughout the counseling relationship.
A.2.a. Informed Consent
A.2.b. T I N
Counselors explicitly explain to clients the nature of all services provided.
They inform clients about issues such as, but not limited to, the following:
the purposes, goals, techniques, procedures, limitations, potential risks, and benefits of services; the counselor’s qualifications, credentials,
relevant experience, and approach to counseling; continuation of services
upon the incapacitation or death of the counselor; the role of technology;
and other pertinent information.
A.2.b. Types of Information Needed
A.2.c. D & C S Counselors communicate information in ways that are both developmentally and culturally appropriate. Counselors use clear and understandable language when discussing issues related to informed consent. When clients have difficulty understanding the language that counselors use, counselors provide necessary services (e.g., arranging for a qualified interpreter or translator) to ensure comprehension by clients. In collaboration with clients, counselors consider cultural implications of informed consent procedures and, where possible, counselors adjust their practices accordingly.
A.2.c. Developmental and
Cultural Sensitivity
A.2.d. I 2 G C When counseling minors, incapacitated adults, or other persons unable to give voluntary consent, counselors seek the assent of clients to services and include them in decision making as appropriate. Counselors recognize the need to balance the ethical rights of clients to make choices, their capacity to give consent or assent to receive services, and parental or familial legal rights and responsibilities to protect these clients and make decisions on their behalf.
A.2.d. Inability to Give Consent
A.2.e. M C Counselors discuss the required limitations to confidentiality when working with clients who have been mandated for counseling services. Counselors also explain what type of information and with whom that information is shared prior to the beginning of counseling. The client may choose to refuse services. In this case, counselors will, to the best of their ability, discuss with the client the potential consequences of refusing counseling services.
A.2.e. Mandated Clients
A.3. C S O When counselors learn that their clients are in a professional relationship with other mental health professionals, they request release from clients to inform the other professionals and strive to establish positive and collaborative professional relationships
A.3. Clients Served by Others
A.4
A.4. Avoiding Harm and
Imposing Values
A.4.a. A H Counselors act to avoid harming their clients, trainees, and research participants and to minimize or to remedy unavoidable or unanticipated harm.
A.4.a. Avoiding Harm
A.4.b. P V Counselors are aware of—and avoid imposing—their own values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Counselors respect the diversity of clients, trainees, and research participants and seek training in areas in which they are at risk of imposing their values onto clients, especially when the counselor’s values are inconsistent with the client’s goals or are discriminatory in nature
A.4.b. Personal Values
A.5.
A.5. Prohibited
Noncounseling Roles
and Relationships
A.5.a. S R R P
Sexual and/or romantic counselor–
client interactions or relationships with
current clients, their romantic partners,
or their family members are prohibited.
This prohibition applies to both in person
and electronic interactions or
relationships.
A.5.a. Sexual and/or
Romantic Relationships
Prohibited
A.5.b. P S R R Counselors are prohibited from engaging in counseling relationships with persons with whom they have had a previous sexual and/or romantic relationship
A.5.b. Previous Sexual and/or
Romantic Relationships
A.5.c. S R R W F C Sexual and/or romantic counselor– client interactions or relationships with former clients, their romantic partners, or their family members are prohibited for a period of 5 years following the last professional contact. This prohibition applies to both in-person and electronic interactions or relationships. Counselors, before engaging in sexual and/or romantic interactions or relationships with former clients, their romantic partners, or their family members, demonstrate forethought and document (in written form) whether the interaction or relationship can be viewed as exploitive in any way and/or whether there is still potential to harm the former client; in cases of potential exploitation and/or harm, the counselor avoids entering into such an interaction or relationship.
A.5.c. Sexual and/or Romantic
Relationships With
Former Clients
A.5.d. F F M Counselors are prohibited from engaging in counseling relationships with friends or family members with whom they have an inability to remain objective.
A.5.d. Friends or Family
Members
A.5.e. P V R W C C
Counselors are prohibited from engaging in a personal virtual relationship
with individuals with whom they have a current counseling relationship (e.g., through social and other media).
A.5.e. Personal Virtual
Relationships With
Current Client
A.6
A.6. Managing and
Maintaining Boundaries
and Professional
Relationships
A.6.a. P R Counselors consider the risks and benefits of accepting as clients those with whom they have had a previous relationship. These potential clients may include individuals with whom the counselor has had a casual, distant, or past relationship. Examples include mutual or past membership in a professional association, organization, or community. When counselors accept these clients, they take appropriate professional precautions such as informed consent, consultation, supervision, and documentation to ensure that judgment is not impaired and no exploitation occurs.
A.6.a. Previous Relationships
A.6.b. E C B
Counselors consider the risks and benefits of extending current counseling
relationships beyond conventional parameters. Examples include attending
a client’s formal ceremony (e.g., a wedding/commitment ceremony or
graduation), purchasing a service or
product provided by a client (excepting
unrestricted bartering), and visiting a client’s
ill family member in the hospital. In
extending these boundaries, counselors
take appropriate professional precautions
such as informed consent, consultation,
supervision, and documentation
to ensure that judgment is not impaired
and no harm occurs.
A.6.b. Extending Counseling
Boundaries
A.6.c. D B E If counselors extend boundaries as described in A.6.a. and A.6.b., they must officially document, prior to the interaction (when feasible), the rationale for such an interaction, the potential benefit, and anticipated consequences for the client or former client and other individuals significantly involved with the client or former client. When unintentional harm occurs to the client or former client, or to an individual
A.6.c. Documenting Boundary
Extensions
A.6.d. R C P R When counselors change a role from the original or most recent contracted relationship, they obtain informed consent from the client and explain the client’s right to refuse services related to the change. Examples of role changes include, but are not limited to 1. changing from individual to relationship or family counseling, or vice versa; 2. changing from an evaluative role to a therapeutic role, or vice versa; and 3. changing from a counselor to a mediator role, or vice versa. Clients must be fully informed of any anticipated consequences (e.g., financial, legal, personal, therapeutic) of counselor role changes.
A.6.d. Role Changes in the
Professional Relationship
A.6.e. N I R (O T S R I R) Counselors avoid entering into nonprofessional relationships with former clients, their romantic partners, or their family members when the interaction is potentially harmful to the client. This applies to both in-person and electronic interactions or relationships
A.6.e. Nonprofessional Interactions or Relationships (Other Than Sexual or Romantic Interactions or Relationships)
A.7
A.7. Roles and Relationships
at Individual, Group,
Institutional, and
Societal Levels
A.7.a. A When appropriate, counselors advocate at individual, group, institutional, and societal levels to address potential barriers and obstacles that inhibit access and/or the growth and development of clients.
A.7.a. Advocacy
A.7.b. C & A Counselors obtain client consent prior to engaging in advocacy efforts on behalf of an identifiable client to improve the provision of services and to work toward removal of systemic barriers or obstacles that inhibit client access, growth, and development.
A.7.b. Confidentiality and
Advocacy
A.8. M C When a counselor agrees to provide counseling services to two or more persons who have a relationship, the counselor clarifies at the outset which person or persons are clients and the nature of the relationships the counselor will have with each involved person. If it becomes apparent that the counselor may be called upon to perform potentially conflicting roles, the counselor will clarify, adjust, or withdraw from roles appropriately.
A.8. Multiple Clients
A.9
A.9. Group Work
A.9.a. S Counselors screen prospective group counseling/therapy participants. To the extent possible, counselors select members whose needs and goals are compatible with the goals of the group, who will not impede the group process, and whose well-being will not be jeopardized by the group experience.
A.9.a. Screening
A.9.b. P C
In a group setting, counselors take reasonable
precautions to protect clients
from physical, emotional, or psychological
trauma.
A.9.b. Protecting Clients
A.10
A.10. Fees and Business
Practices
A.10.a. S R Counselors working in an organization (e.g., school, agency, institution) that provides counseling services do not refer clients to their private practice unless the policies of a particular organization make explicit provisions for self-referrals. In such instances, the clients must be informed of other options open to them should they seek private counseling services.
A.10.a. Self-Referral
A.10.b. U B P Counselors do not participate in fee splitting, nor do they give or receive commissions, rebates, or any other form of remuneration when referring clients for professional services.
A.10.b. Unacceptable Business
Practices
