Standards_in_Counselling

What are the standard ethics to be considered in counseling The effectiveness in counseling depends on counselors ability of maintaining an satisfactory standard of practice. These standards include ethics required in counseling. Different standard of ethics to be considered in counseling are: Confidentiality: when it comes to confediality, everything that is shared by the client within the four walls of that room should be kept confidential. A client puts all his hope and trust into a counselor bearing in mind that his views will be respected and protected by keeping it confidential. When there is a leakage of information from the counselor about the clients case, first of all the client will feel cheated, lose his trust. This news may eventually spread and the people too will not want to come for counseling. Whereas there are certain exception to this confidentiality where in the counselor can open up if he sees and is confident about the serious harm or danger that the client may cause to him/herself or to the public. For eg. the client wants to commit suicide and the session has made no improvement as the client is mentally ill. Charging fairly: the counselor should charge a fair price for the sessions conducted approved by APA irrespective of clients caste, race. Client Safety or protection: Every counselor before practicing his counseling skills should be firm to ensure safety of their clients. Clients safety would be physical as well as psychological, physical safety is ensured by maintaining the surrounding environment comfortable and psychological safety is being genuine, understanding and gentle with the client thru words, actions and behavior. Required qualification or training: The Counsellor should posses the required qualification and should be trained enough to handle the client. He should know to use the required skills and alter the type of therapies eg. CBT, Gestalt, PCT as per the needs of client. Contract Bond: A contract bond is wherein it is made clear to the client about what counseling really is, its terms and conditions. It has to be cleary communicated to the client about the frequency and length of sessions. Respect for client self-determination: As Roger puts forward every person has the capabilities of changing him/self and the resources lies within the person. The counselor has to understand that finally it is the client who will decide and change, the counsellor is just an instrument to guide and enlighten the client. Indemnity insurance: the counselor has to insure him/self and his counseling setting this will help him to exempt from all sorts of loss, penalties and liabilities charged by any client. Duty to maintain the profession’s reputation: Counselor practicing Client Consent: During the termination clients consent is to be obtained and only if the client agrees, his/her case could be shared. If the counselor shares or leaks out information regarding the client, it could be by publishing in an article or in a workshop and if the client comes to know about it than the client can sue the counselor on account of breach of confidentiality. Draw a line: the counselor should be aware about himself, this in return will help him not to mix his profession into his personnel life. Whereas if the counselor is not able to segregate between these two areas that is his counseling and private affairs, it could lead to various problems. Firstly, if the counselor gets counseling baggage at home it would not allow him to freely enjoy or be himself. Secondly it may lead to too much involvement with the client itself, preferably these chances are maximum when the client is of opposite sex. This may further end up into an affair of a counselor with his client. Justice: the counselor should not make biases by feeling sorry and pity for a client just because he feels it is very bad or because he had gone through a similar situation. Similarly, If a couple comes for counseling he should not try to take side of one partner. Overall the counselor should not be judgemental in his approach. Besides the above ethics a counselor has to be understanding, genuine, congruent and empathetic in his approach. The above ethics together with the required qualilties of an counselor will be of great help for the whole world.