Threats to Good Practice in Counseling

This report discusses the various threats to good practice in the counseling field, including issues of privacy, informed consent, and professional misconduct. It emphasizes the importance of a personal ethical framework in mitigating these threats and ensuring effective counseling practices. The report outlines the ethical principles and values that guide counselors, highlighting the need for competence and adherence to ethical standards to protect client welfare.

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COUNSELING: THE THREATS TO GOOD PRACTICE IN COUNSELING
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Introduction
The development of human services has gained great importance in the modern world and is
projected to even increase in the near future at a rapid rate as compared to other professionals. It
is a field that seeks to meet human needs through a system of the interdisciplinary knowledge
base that cuts across the disciplines of counseling, social work, youth work as well as
psychotherapy. The field focused on providing prevention mechanisms to social problems or
human psychological problems affecting individuals or society at large, remediation of the
problems as well as maintaining a commitment to improving the overall standards and quality of
life amongst a given population as pointed out by Nuttgens and Chang (2013, p. 284). Such
initiative calls for ethical frameworks for good practice in the field. However, there has been a
threat among the professionals engaged in offering human services. This study will, therefore,
seek to establish and provide an understanding of the threats or challenges to good practice in
human services in the field of counseling and how the personal ethical framework can assist a
counselor to avoid such bad practices.
In order to understand the threats to good practice in counseling, it is equally important to
understand the ethical framework for good practice in counseling. This refers to the ethical code
of conduct for counselors, trainers as well as the supervisors within the counseling field. The
ethical framework also governs or it’s applicable to counseling research, the management of
counseling services as well as in the regulation of the use of counseling skills by counseling
professionals (Bond & Mitchels, 2014, p.6). The ethical frameworks are categorized into values,
principles as well as to personal moral qualities. It is the understanding of these ethical

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frameworks that provide a basis for the understanding of the threats to good practice in the
counseling field.
The values in counseling help in ensuring that the clients are comfortable and in a safe social
environment to express themselves. They include respecting human dignity as well as their
rights, ensuring that counselors are working constantly with clients to alleviate suffering and
distress as well as maintaining a professional counselor client relationship (Lustgarten 2015,
pg].154). It is also required that counselors should appreciate diversity in their client's experience
and culture as well as ensuring that their clients are safe. Any action against these values is
termed as a threat to good practice in the field of counseling and may be termed as professional
misconduct.
On the other hand, the understanding of ethical principles is also important to the understanding
of the common threats to the good practice of counseling human services. The principles are
used to emphasize on the counselor's responsibilities and making them accountable for their
decisions. Such principles include fidelity which helps the counselors to understand and resolve
incongruence resulting from their clients. There is also a principle of autonomy which ensures
that counselors respect as well as develop their client’s abilities to be self-directing in their
decisions (Knox et al. 2015, p. 2114). Other principles include the principles of self-respect,
justice which ensures that the appropriate legal requirements and obligations are taken care in
event of a threat to good practice as well as beneficence which ensures that counselors and other
professionals in the line of counseling human services department or profession act in the best
interest of their clients. Lastly are the morals which dictate the code of conduct for the health
professionals and include empathy, sincerity, humility, competence, and resilience.

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Threats to good practice in counseling services
Counseling services are very important and have a wide applicability in different areas of social
life and therefore counselors play a vital role in improving the quality of life for the people in a
given society. However, the success of the service provider depends on various values, principles
and moral standards as discussed above from both the clients as well as the counselors (Johnson
& Jackson Williams 2015, p. 442). The success of a good practice in counseling is however
faced with a number of threats including; results resulting from lack of privacy and
confidentiality, lack of client consent to perform or make certain counseling decisions, lack of
competence in handling client problems, substitute decision making or even threats from
professional misconducts.
Lack of privacy and confidentiality has been one of the major threats to good practice in
counseling. For effective counseling services provision and building the right relationship than
the clients, as well as the counselors, need to trust each other. If the client is not sure of the
security or how safe the environment they are operating are then may not be in a position to
share their problems, experiences as well as concerns to the counselors. Privacy and
confidentiality are paramount and helps the clients to grow trust towards their counselors
(Johnson & Jackson Williams, 2015, p. 440). Many incidences have been reported where client’s
files have been found into the hands of unintended persons or unauthorized persons and resulting
to cold relationships between the counselors and their clients as well as building an environment
of mistrusts. Counselors are therefore supposed to provide the client with an intake form
outlining the areas of confidentiality and any exceptions to it. The form should be signed before

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a counseling relationship starts. All the clients’ files should also be kept in a safe only accessible
to the authorized persons.
Another threat to good practice in counseling is the lack of informed consent. It is a legal
requirement for the counselors to have an informed consent from their clients before undertaking
any decisions or actions pertaining to the counseling services being provided (Corey, 2015, p. 2).
The client's consent can take many forms as to either expressed or presumed consent, explicit or
implicit, written, verbal or non-verbal consent among other forms. But whichever the form of
consent given it remains that it is important for the counselors to have an informed consent. Lack
of informed consent has found to result in conflicts and disagreements between the counselors
and their clients and some have even led to legal action being taken against either of the parties
in an event where a counselor or clients act against the wishes of the other (Bradbury et al. 2015,
p. 485).
It is also important to understand the threats to good practice resulting from substituted
decisions. This occurs when individuals seek support from others when faced with significant
decision making instances. In most cases, these relationships are not defined in terms of
agreements and therefore in event of a misunderstanding between the counselors and their
clients, it becomes very difficult to establish who made a certain decision and may lead to lack of
understanding and mistrust between the parties involved (Standing, 2017, p. 4). Although the law
supports the idea of supportive decision-making, there must be an agreement showing that the
client or the counselor decided to change or substitute his or her prior decision and the
circumstances resulting in the decisions.

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Lack of competency in conducting guidance and counseling has also been a major threat to good
practice in counseling. It is the competency standards of a counselor that determine the value
worth of pursuing counseling services (Morgan et al. 2014, p. 491). Competency is, therefore, an
important component in guidance and counseling and involves marshaling of knowledge,
attitudes, and skills and in most case it is usually informed by an intellectual grasp of the nature
of counseling and the social context of the counselor’s client and the values worth pursuing
(Stacey et al. 2015, p. 14). Lack of competency standards among counselors have affected the
professional growth of counseling services as clients will only contract counselors who are
competent enough to handle their problems or concerns.
Lastly, professional misconducts have also been a major threat to good practice in counseling.
Every profession is guided by a certain code of conducts and certain ethical frameworks. As
analyzed in the introductory part of the paper, the values, morals, and principles guiding the
provision of counseling services form the most integral part in counseling (Welfel, 2015, p. 3).
This is because they form to guide the code of conduct for both the counselors toward their
clients as well as for the clients towards their counselors. Professional misconducts in counseling
may have great impacts on the parties and especially to the clients since most of the clients
approach or seek counseling services to solve their problems of remedy an ongoing situation and
therefore in event of breach of the code of conducts the clients are psychologically affected.
Some of the professional misconducts include lack of commitment by the counselor to solving
the clients problems, lack of respect to the clients human rights as well as their dignity, acting
contrary to the legal framework guiding the activities or services of counseling, lack of sincerity
when conducting counseling as well as lack of maintaining privacy and confidentiality of clients

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records among others. Therefore these issues must be addressed appropriately and the relevant
strategies should be adopted as well as developing mechanisms to address the future occurrences
of these threats.
Personal ethical framework in avoiding bad practice in counseling
According to Duffy and Passmore (2010), the term ethics is not easy to define at its lowest of the
highest level in counseling. It consists of universal rules and principles underlying the laws of
behavior. It is a set of values or norms held by a group or individual as acceptable standards of
behavior (Duffy & Passmore 2010, p. 140). Every professional in different chosen areas of work
has certain values and beliefs that are considered ethical or acceptable within the line of action.
However, Nuttgens and Chang (2013) denote that some of these beliefs are often modified with
the aim of making a comfortable working environment for the benefits of the workers as well as
the society as a whole. As a result, Place (2010) denotes that it is essential to be aware of
personal values and the impact the values often have on the profession. Therefore, it is essential
to develop a personal framework that can assist an individual to avoid bad or unethical practices
in their line of work, counseling for this case.
In counseling, Place (2010) point out that clients are often protected by standards, legislations,
and codes of ethics. As a result, counselors and counseling organizations are required to develop
procedures and policies that act as the guidelines for counseling. For instance, clients have the
right to privacy, confidentiality, informed choice, complaining about services being received,
and the right to informed choices. They also have the right to enjoy the treatment of dignity and
respect in a manner that meets their cultural, social, and physical needs as pointed out by Duffy
and Passmore (2010, p. 89). The same study denotes that clients have the rights of accessing all

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the information held about them in the process of being served by counselors and be informed
about the policy, procedures, service, rules, and expectations of service. It is thus essential to
develop a personal ethical framework that will help a counselor avoid any bad practice that
might negatively impact their profession and destroy their relationships with their clients.
In a systematic study, Nuttgens and Chang (2013) denote that ethical challenges are often
characterized by ‘what if’ as well as situations where there seems to be absent in a clear solution
to the problem. Given the complexity of such ethical issues in counseling, the personal ethical
framework is often adopted to help a counselor in resolving the issues professionally and
appropriately while considering the rights of the clients. Every professional guideline and ethical
codes are best on respect and care for the clients. Therefore, a professional ethical framework to
be clear on the guidelines of the profession as it will give him the familiarity and guidance on all
the relevant legislation. A professional ethical framework also allows an individual to explore
every side of an ethical dilemma while examining the consequences of any decision or action
made.
In a systematic study, Place (2010) denotes that a personal ethical framework helps a
professional to employ the agency code of conduct that is reflected in the procedures and policies
of the framework. In other words, it helps a counselor to demonstrate effective and proper
commitment to moral standards of the acceptable professional behaviors that need to be upheld
at all times when serving a client. As a result, it is essential to examine and explore the most
common ethical dilemmas within the counseling profession and widely consult with colleagues
to effectively adopt an ethical framework that is relevant to the duty of the counselor.

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Ethical practice in counseling profession involves adherence to a strict set of guidelines that are
designed to ensure client and patient satisfaction and safety with the aim of maximizing the
overall results of the therapy process as pointed out by Nuttgens and Chang (2013, p. 284). The
same study denotes that these guidelines are vital whether the process of counseling therapy
between acquaintances and friends or under professional jurisdiction. Adopting a personal ethical
framework in this important as it helps in outlining the importance of ethics in the process. The
framework hence helps a counselor in examining the practical skills that need to be developed
and used by counselors with the aim of maintaining a safe and fair boundary. Arczynski and
Morrow (2017) point out that personal ethical framework help in shaping the counseling practice
into a monitored, effective, and safe treatment. Due to the vulnerability of those given therapies
as well as the trust in place between the counselor and the client, there is a need of taking an
extra care onto their mental and physical well-being. In such cases, the ethical framework is
adopted with the aim of helping the clients understand the treatment involved while allowing the
counselor to discuss vital issues such as cost and time of counseling.
According to Place (2010), responsibility and ownership to ethical practice are often taken to be
an individual professional process. In other words, even though the ethical framework is vital to
all therapy and counseling, the skills and practices adopted by the professional within the
counseling therapy are often put in place at the counselors’ discretion depending on the needs of
the individual clients. The framework thus helps in protecting confidentiality. In a systematic
study, Duffy and Passmore (2010) point out that counselor is at times asked to provide
information regarding their clients to spouses, employers, insurance companies, and
administrators among other. Even though such requests can be well-intentioned, the counselors

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are required to be very careful in balancing the disclosure with the required ethical obligations to
protect the confidentiality of their clients.
Since the public puts their trust in the confidentiality and promises of the counselors, it is vital
for the counselors to be clear on whether or why they have to release the information as pointed
out by Nuttgens and Chang (2013, p. 284). The framework hence helps the counselor to ask
questions such as in there a law mandating the disclosure? Is there a law permitting me to
disclose the issue? On what basis should I make the disclosure? Has the client I represent
consented the disclosure? In such cases, Gordon, Jacobs, and Wright (2016) denote that the APA
Code Act stipulates that psychologists are only required to disclose the minimum information in
providing the needed services, obtaining appropriate consultations, protecting the clients and
others from any harm, and obtaining payment for services. In such cases, a personal ethical
framework is adopted to clarify the limits of confidentiality, ensure a safe storage of any
confidential information, to understand the state and federal laws, as well as to obey the
mandatory reporting laws as pointed out by Arczynski and Morrow (2017, p. 192).
Ethical practice in counseling profession involves adherence to a strict set of guidelines that are
designed to ensure client and patient satisfaction and safety with the aim of maximizing the
overall results of the therapy process as pointed out by Nuttgens and Chang (2013, p. 284). The
same study denotes that these guidelines are vital whether the process of counseling therapy
between acquaintances and friends or under professional jurisdiction. Arczynski and Morrow
(2017) point out that personal ethical framework help in shaping the counseling practice into a
monitored, effective, and safe treatment.
Conclusion

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Even though the development of human services has gained great importance in the modern
world, it is still projected to increase in the near future at a rapid rate as compared to other
professionals. It hence means that it is a field that seeks to meet human needs through a system
of the interdisciplinary knowledge cutting across the disciplines of counseling, social work,
youth work as well as psychotherapy. As a result, adopting a personal ethical framework in this
field is important as it helps in outlining the importance of ethics in the process within the
counseling profession. The framework hence helps a counselor in examining the practical skills
that need to be developed and used by counselors with the aim of maintaining a safe and fair
boundary. Due to the vulnerability of those given therapies as well as the trust in place between
the counselor and the client, there is a need of taking an extra care onto their mental and physical
well-being. In such cases, the ethical framework is adopted with the aim of helping the clients
understand the treatment involved while allowing the counselor to discuss vital issues such as
cost and time of counseling.

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List of References
Arczynski, A, & Morrow, S 2017, 'The complexities of power in feminist multicultural
psychotherapy supervision', Journal Of Counseling Psychology, 64, 2, pp. 192-205,
PsycARTICLES, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 August 2017.
Bond, T. and Mitchels, B., 2014.Confidentiality & Record Keeping in Counselling&
Psychotherapy.SAGE.
Bradbury, A.R., Patrick-Miller, L., Long, J., Powers, J., Stopfer, J., 2015.Development of a
tiered and binned genetic counseling model for informed consent in the era of multiplex testing
for cancer susceptibility. Genetics in medicine: official journal of the American College of
Medical Genetics, 17(6), p.485.
Corey, G., 2015. Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy.Nelson Education.
Gordon, B, Jacobs, J, & Wright, P 2016, 'Social and Emotional Learning Through a Teaching
Personal and Social Responsibility Based After-School Program for Disengaged Middle-School
Boys', Journal Of Teaching In Physical Education, 35, 4, pp. 358-369, SPORTDiscus with Full
Text, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 August 2017.
Johnson, A. and Jackson Williams, D., 2015. White racial identity, color-blind racial attitudes,
and multicultural counseling competence.Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology,
21(3), p.440.