Ethics Of Counseling Couples And Families

The purpose of this paper is to review my professional identity as a Marriage and Family Therapist and to reflect on my developing beliefs within my selection of the counseling profession. My professional identity is beginning to be developed throughout my education with Liberty University. I will address the Marriage and Family Therapist professional counselor role and how this position differs from social workers, clinical psychologists, and professional counselors. By reviewing the differences in counseling positions, I will be able to express the differences from my previous experiences with pastoral counseling, and outline what my

Gehart, D. R., & Tuttle, A. R. (2003). Theory-based treatment planning for marriage and family therapists. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Strategic Therapy or Strategic Family Therapy is one of the oldest theories used in the practice of marriage and family therapy today. It was developed by Don Jackson and others affiliated to the Palo Alto group. Jay Haley and the Milan Group are also important practitioners of the model Strategic Therapy. This theory is portrayed as focused on altering family dynamics, eliminating problems and focusing on the presenting problems rather than the past, and often giving homework and behavioral tasks to clients. In this essay is a detailed description of the history of strategic therapy, beliefs, techniques and problems presented by this theory.

Professional associations establish codes of ethics to ensure that clinicians uphold the standards of their association in order to protect the clients they serve and the profession they are affiliated with. This paper will compare the codes of ethics of the American Counseling Association (ACA), American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), and National Association of Social Workers (NASW).

I believe that maintaining the marriage should be the decision of the parties involved when a couple enters relationship counseling because of conflict and emotional distress. I would not want to impose my personal beliefs on my client’s. By having a conversation around what values each client has and what values they each have in common I would allow them a safe space to continue exploring what they want to do as a team. Counselors should not have a greater ethical responsibility to encourage couples to maintain the marriage when children are involved because every family is different and one should not assume that because they have children they have to stay together for the betterment of the family. One reason I would not want to do so is because not all families need to stay together to strive and I would not want to impose my belief that they should stay together when they could make the family dynamic work with whichever path they choose to take. What needs to be done is to have a conversation around the needs of their child and what they believe is the best

The purpose of this paper is to examine the field of marriage and family counseling beginning with the history and development of the profession and its importance in the field of counseling. This paper will also evaluate five major themes relevant to Marriage and Family Therapy which include: roles of Marriage and Family Therapists; licensure requirements and examinations; methods of supervision; client advocacy; multiculturalism and diversity. The author will discuss significant aspects to the field of Marriage and Family Therapy such as MFT identity, function, and ethics of the profession. This paper will assess biblical values in relation to Marriage and Family Therapists and to the field

It takes very special people to want to make a difference in people’s lives, to want to help them to be better. Some people seek to become counselors after overcoming a most important life challenge. The individuals that seek the profession of marriage and family therapy do not think of this work as a job or career, more typically a constellation of life experiences that demand explanation and a sense that others seek one out for assistance and emotional sustenance become driving forces leading one to counseling profession (An Invitation to Counseling Work).

Day, H. D., St. Clair, S., & Marshall, D. D. (1997). Do people who marry really have the same

therapy aims to improve family relations, and the family is encouraged to become a type of

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO DR. JAMES D. GIBSON FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR CO 5740 INTRODUCTION TO MARRIAGE AND FAMILY COUNSELING

Treating individuals as always as ends and never as means to an end it the primary obligation in Deontology theories. It means to recognize that the client’s value does not depend on anything else - it does not depend on whether they are having an affair or being fully committed into fixing their marriage. Value is not dependent on what the client does/did. Therefore the therapist approach should be solely based on the sense of duty to act in a way that is right and so leaving her biases aside. In fact, every individual has different sense of morality on certain topics such as in this case, extramarital relationship, and so what is right and what is wrond is determied by its conformity with a moral norm. According to Kantians’s theory, what

Ethics and therapy are closely intertwined. It is important that healthcare professionals dealing in therapy adhere to strict professional standards and values that help define expectations and also prevent harm to those who seek therapy. Although the application of such values can sometimes be somewhat complicated when such therapists are dealing with individual clients, the complexity is even more heightened in the context of having multiple family members under therapy. Advancing conversations regarding values and marriage and family therapy is important to enable professionals grapple with the complexities of the topic as well as support their clients better.

Understanding who I am is critical for me to improve myself and have better cognitive balance that would help me to provide better therapeutic relationship with my future couples clients. However, I have come a long way in both my professional and personal life to get where I am now. It is vital that any student studying couples therapy integrate the morals generally accepted by the society. I developed a set of principles and manners in most of my life, which I subconsciously inherited from my culture. Though my culture has some different perspective of being couple, I have tried to be acculturated in order to understand and recognize the differences of what I have learned and those are new to me.

Reflecting on ethical matters in a therapy setting with couples, It is important to highlight that some issues couple arises during the intervention and the therapist must be prepared to manage them properly. Some of these issues that can be mentioned are related to discrimination based on religion, sexual orientation, etc. Others can be related to client-therapist dual relationship, secrecy in the relationships of both partners, and many others. However, with the evolution of the technology, the field of mental health has been exposed to some changes and this includes the use of online methods, known as Telehealth, to interview couples as an example as they are in the traditional office setting (Hertlein, 2014). This has some advantages and disadvantages as well.

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of marital and family therapy, it is imperative that therapists engage in the ethical, competent treatment of their clients. There are three aspects of marriage and family therapy research that makes it unique from other research fields: 1) multiple family members are involved; 2) it involves extremely sensitive information; and 3) it is performed in conjunction with therapy. According to Hohmann-Marriott (2001), because of these aspects as well as the researcher’s responsibility to conduct