Legal and Ethics in Counseling

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Decision-Making Models for Ethical and Legal Issues Ethics & Legal Aspects of Counseling Responding to ethical and legal matters in counseling can sometimes throw counselors into a murky area, a place where quite often the solutions are not clearly defined through the ACA’s Code of Ethics. This paper addresses a few ethical and legal dilemmas a counselor may face while working in addictions counseling, whilst keeping in mind the importance in upholding their personal value system through the development of an ethical decision-making process. Ethics and values differ in definition, whereas ethics are a critical component in competent counseling – values provide the framework that may forecast the motivation and modalities used during the counseling process. A counselor may be ethically proficient, but lack ability when safeguarding values due to a low appreciative of moral relativism (Wright, 2008). For example, in the case study of Bobby, the issue of multiculturalism is of concern; ethics and values must congruently coexist to ensure that the different perspectives of both client and counselor work together in harmony. Counselors incorporate their beliefs and values into their practice, but a challenge is presented when finding the proper balance to avoid imposing those beliefs onto their client (Kocet & Herlihy, 2014). Ethical Decision-Making Model The ACA Code of Ethics (2014) acknowledge that counselors will be faced with challenging ethical dilemmas and are expected to “engage in a carefully considered ethical decision-making process” and although not all models are effective in every situation, “counselors are expected to use a credible model of decision-making that can bear public scrutiny of its application” (p.2). Remley & Herlihy (2014) proposed a comprehensive systematic ethical decision-making process to assist

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