Section A: The Counseling Relationship Flashcards
A.1 Client Welfare
Primary Responsibility, Records and Documentation, Counseling Plans, Support Network Involvement
A.1.a Primary Responsibility
The primary responsibility of the counselor is to respect the dignity and promote the welfare of the clients.
A.1.b Records and Documentation
Counselors create, safeguard, and maintain documentation necessary for rendering professional services. Regardless of the medium, counselors include enough and timely documentation to ensure that documentation accurately reflects client progress and services provided. If amendments are mare to records and documentation, counselors take steps to properly note the amendments according to agency or institutional policies
A.1.c Counseling Plans
Counselors and Clients work jointly to develop counseling plans that offer reasonable promise of success and are consistent with the abilities, temperament, developmental level, and circumstances of the clients. Counselors and clients regularly review and revise counseling plans to assess their continued viability and effectiveness, respecting clients freedom of choice.
A.1.d Support Network Involvement
Counselors recognize that support networks hold various meanings in the lives of clients and consider enlisting the support, understanding, and involvement of others (religion, spiritual, community leaders, family members, friends) as positive resources, when appropriate, with client consent.
A.2. Informed Consent in the Counseling Relationship
Informed consent, Types of Information needed, Developmental and Cultural Sensitivity, Inability to Give Consent, Mandated Clients,
A.2.a. Informed Consent
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 the 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.b Types of information needed
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 counselors 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. Counselors take steps to ensure that clients understand the implications of diagnosis and the intended use of tests and reports. Additionally, counselors inform clients about fees and billing arrangements, including procedures for nonpayment of fees. Clients have the right to confidentiality and to be provided with an explanation of its limits (including how supervisors and/or treatment or interdisciplinary team professionals are involved), to obtain clear information about their records, to participate in the ongoing counseling plans, and to refuse anyone services of modality changes and to be advised of the consequences of such refusal
A.2.c. Developmental and Culturally Sensitivity
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 qualified interpreter or translator) to ensure comprehension by the clients. In collaboration with clients, counselors consider cultural implications of informed consent procedures and, where possible, counselors adjust their practices accordingly.
A.2.d. Inability to Give Consent
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.3 Clients Served by Others
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 and collaborative professional relationships
A.4 Avoiding Harm and Imposing Values
Avoiding Harm, Personal Values
A.4.a Avoiding Harm
Counselors act to avoid harming their clients, trainees, and research participants and to minimize or remedy unavoidable or unanticipated harm.
A.4.b. Personal Values
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 counselors values are inconsistent with the client’s goals or are discriminatory in nature.
A.5 Prohibited NonCounseling Roles and Relationships
Sexual and/or romantic relationships prohibited, previous sexual and/or romantic relationships, sexual and/or romantic relationships with former clients, friends or family members, personal virtual relationships with current clients
A.5.a Sexual and/or Romantic Relationships Prohibited
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.b. Previous Sexual and/or Romantic Relationships
Counselors are prohibited from engaging in counseling relationships with persons with whom they have had a previous sexual and/or romantic relationship
A.5.c Sexual and/or Romantic Relationships with Former Clients
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
A.5.d Friends or Family Members
Counselors are prohibited from engaging in counseling relationships with friends or family members with whom they have an inability to remain objective.
A.5.e. Personal Virtual Relationships with Current Clients
Counselors are prohibited from engaging in a personal virtual relationship with individuals with whom they have a current counseling relationship (social or other media).
A.6.a. Managing and Maintaining Boundaries and Professional Relationships
Previous Relationships, Extending Counseling Boundaries, Documenting Boundary Extensions, Role Changes in the Professional Relationship, Nonprofessional Interactions or Relationships (other than sexual or romantic interactions or relationships)
A.6.a Previous Relationships
Counselors consider the risks and benefits of accepting as clients those with whom they had a previous relationship. These potential clients may include 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 judgement is not impaired and no exploitation occurs.
A.6.b. Extending Counseling Boundaries
Counselors consider the risks and benefits of extending current counseling relationships beyond conventional parameters. Examples include attending a clients formal ceremony, purchasing a service or product provided by a client, visiting clients 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 judgement is not impaired and no harm occurs.
A.6.c Documenting Boundary Extensions
If counselors extend boundaries as described, they must officially document, prior to the interaction, 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, significantly involved with the client or former client, the counselor must show evidence of an attempt to remedy such harm
