Bshs 335 Week 4 Assignment

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| | | | The Case of Tanya and Liz. Maxine, a lesbian therapist, is seeing a lesbian couple, Liz and Tanya. It is customary for Maxine to see the partners individually on occasion. During Tanya’s fi rst individual session, she confesses to having affairs with several men. Tanya tells Maxine that she sees herself as bisexual, a fact she has not disclosed to Liz. One of the issues introduced by Liz and Tanya was a problem with intimacy. During the individual session, Maxine suggests that this is one more way that Tanya avoids intimacy and begins to explore this issue with her. At the end of the session, Tanya agrees with the therapist’s interpretation and commits to further couples work with Liz. Commentary. We do not know whether Maxine has a “no secrets” policy in her informed consent document. This situation would be less perplexing if Maxine has thought through the potential ramifi cations of addressing secrets and clearly stated her professional stance on the matter. Our approach is to encourage the person holding the secret to disclose it. Perhaps Maxine’s work with Tanya and her renewed commitment to couples therapy will enable Tanya to reveal this secret to Liz. Ultimately, disclosure is the client’s choice and responsibility. We are inclined to discuss the pros and cons of sharing or not sharing the secret with the client holding the secret. This also involves a discussion of how the secret may be affecting the problem the couple brought to therapy and the therapy outcome itself. It is our responsibility as therapists to justify our clinical approach to situations such as this. Describe the ethical issues that confront you, as the caseworker The ethical issues that I feel confronts me is the deciding what my responsibility to the client is as well as how much confidentiality I am allowed to disclose. Ethically, I may want to
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