Ethics in the Helping Profession Ethical Principles Essay

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Ethics in the Helping Profession

Ethical principles are essential for good practice in helping professions. Counsellors require clearly defined principles to understand their responsibilities to their clients, their community and themselves. These principles outline the counsellor's responsibilities, such as; preserving clients' confidentiality, keeping current and informative records that assist in clients' progress, and choosing appropriate techniques and interventions based on individual knowledge and experience with clients. These principles also define clients' rights, such as; freedom to be vulnerable within a relationship where privacy and discretion are maintained, and trust in the intentions and competence of a chosen counsellor. Without ethics as a cornerstone to good practice there would be no authenticity in the therapeutic approach.

What reason would clients have to consider and value a counsellor's techniques if the counsellor does not apply his interventions in his own life? How can a person reflect on another person's life if she is unwilling to identify the issues in her own? It is not possible. The therapeutic relationship is defined by the responsibility of the therapist to act in the best interest of his clients. The level of intimacy that is explored in this relationship can feel to the client like a welcomed friendship but must be kept in check by the therapist so that the relationship can provide clients with effective feedback that will assist them in reaching their goals, rather than desired feedback that is intended to flatter or maintain the relationship between client and therapist. It is imperative that a therapist define and maintain the professional boundaries of the relationships with clients and not expect the client to be responsible for holding them in place while also feeling very emotionally exposed.

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It is natural for the client to feel a wide range of emotions in the relationship that she experiences with her therapist. Many of these emotions will be misplaced as projections of other significant relationships in the client's past or present. They must be recognized by the therapist for what they are. If a therapist fails to maintain the boundaries between personal and professional, he fails his clients. Constructive feedback may otherwise be interpreted as rejection by the client and the therapist loses his position to impact his client as an objective professional.

It is important for a person in a helping profession to examine her relationships with clients and make sure that she is not using those professional relationships to fulfil personal needs. Part of this examination process is deep self-reflection in the counsellor's own life; delving into grief, depression, unresolved grudges and family history. These lay the foundation for the counsellor to truly have compassion for her clients, and yet her own emotional experiences must be considered and addressed entirely outside of counselling sessions. In order to represent oneself genuinely as a counsellor, one must be committed to a life of self-reflection. This principle is essential in order for a counsellor to act in the interest of his clients.

The principle of confidentiality protects the client from having personal information shared about her life with others, with the exception of colleagues or a supervisor when appropriate and having already obtaining client consent to do so. This principle also protects the client from unknowingly becoming an interesting topic of conversation among the counsellor's social group. It is important to build trust with a….....

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