Ethical Standards for Mental Health Services: A Case Analysis

Running Head: ETHICAL STANDARD 0
Ethical
Standards

ETHICAL STANDARD 1
Introduction
In the present day, mental health is gaining a lot of attention. As a
result of this attention, the services related to this field have taken
prominence. Mental Health Services like counselling act as a treatment
that provided professionally to the individual(s) to eradicate emotional or
mental disorders (Gazzola, 2016). In the following case, the situation of
Henry, a counsellor, and Mr. P, the client, has been analysed in context of
issue of bartering and an attempt has been made to solve the ethical
issue arising from this situation.
Ethical Standards for Mental Health Services
The process of Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association
is provided to the counsellors so that they will be able to solve the ethical
dilemmas. Here are the following steps -
Step 1: Identifying Ethical dilemma
The foremost step is to find out the ethical issues in the case. So, in
given case Henry is a counsellor and Mr .P is a client and has cocaine
addiction problem and Henry make certain that Mr. P will get benefit from
counselling but Mr. P is unable to pay the amount of counselling and in
return Mr. P suggests providing general maintenance and office duties. So
here the ethical issue is that Henry should use bartering or not. Bartering
means to accept the services, goods or other non-monetary things from
the clients or patients and in return provide them counselling or

ETHICAL STANDARD 2
psychological services. Mostly Bartering is done when the patient is not
able to pay for the counselling or therapy services. If bartering is allowed
to one person than bartering shall be made allowable for everyone and
this is not the proper way to solve the issues.
Step 2: Terms related to Ethical dilemma
 Respecting diversity – Counsellor should have whole understanding
of the client background and the discrimination is not to be done on
the basis of age, gender, status, religion. The knowledge about
client’s background is necessary so that the counsellor can provide
therapy services.
 Fees and Billing agreements – Counsellors states both fees and
billing agreements clearly to the clients but in given case fees is not
paid instead of fees services are rendered.
 Appropriateness of Evaluation and Assessment- Counsellor take all
the relevant tests to assess and evaluate about the clients
appropriateness. Counsellor does not rely on the basis of single
source.
 Dual Relationship – The relationship other than the professional
relationships are dual relationship. In Bartering, The relation
between the counsellor and client is not that professional. The dual
relationship leads to conflict that’s why bartering is provided only
when the therapy is danger and client is not able to pay for therapy.