Throughout the last century, The Unites States of America has been affectionately dubbed, “the melting pot.” Although our Western culture was built on a multicultural foundation, we have nevertheless failed, “to embrace many of the needs, views, and perspectives specific to those not considered part” of the dominant White-Western culture. Only in recent decades have we truly started to address this gap and the needs associated with serving others from a culturally sensitive standpoint. The American Counseling Association (ACA) has slowly adapted to these needs by integrating culturally sensitive language in the ACA Code of Ethics; however, culture permeates every aspect and every level of the counseling process and does not stand alone. …show more content…
I found myself in a very similar situation several years ago when I scheduled my first couples session. Just like Alayah, I was interested in offering couples counseling, had attended trainings and workshops to learn how to effectively work with couples, and was trying hard to build a clientele. Based on my initial phone consultation with the wife, I felt fairly confident that I was well prepared for our first session together. This experience, however, taught me a humbling and valuable lesson. I assumed that couples counseling was similar to individual counseling with two clients instead of one, but I quickly learned that it is a whole different beast!
At the completion of Alayah’s first session, she felt seriously conflicted and doubted her ability to competently work with the couple. She questioned whether it was ethical to continue seeing the couple. I had many of these same musings. I began to question whether I had scheduled them for the right reasons. Did I really think I could help them? Was I just looking to add more clients? What do I do now? I remember thinking that I wanted to do whatever was best for the couple; that was my primary responsibility!
2. Explore the Context of Power
My clients were a male and a female, both African American in their mid-40s. They stated that they didn’t trust a lot of people but “felt” like they could trust me to help them. They wanted to “fix” their marriage which had been “broken” by the husband’s infidelity. They were
Ethical Issues in Multicultural Counseling An analysis of the importance bicultural counselors within K-12 school systems across the United States reveals a few challenges facing counselors, the most important being: how to become culturally sensitive and understanding. As cultural competency becomes more prominent within the counseling profession, it seems to be that non-minority counselors are calling on their colleagues of different ethnicities to educate them in how to bridge the gap that is cultural. America is known for being a “melting pot” bringing many different cultures and walks of life together to create a wonderful country, but what happens when there is a lack of understanding within the therapeutic relationship? Culturally competent
After careful analysis, the first two alternatives clearly fail to consider the rights and welfare of all the key stakeholders (McGonigle & Matrian, 2014). As previously mentioned, the key stakeholders include the student, hospital, patients, and university. Sue would most likely violate hospital policies, the HIPPA privacy rules, and/or the ANA code of ethics by engaging in either of these courses of action (McGonigle & Matrian, 2014). For example, she may inadvertently access, use, and/or disclose a patient’s protected healthcare information (McGowan, 2012).
Making sound ethical decisions require an intentional process that utilizes thoughtful reflection, supervision/consultation, and action. Many ethical decision making models exist and the seven-step model introduced by Forester-Miller and Davis (1996) is a succinct amalgamation of these earlier models. The model by Forester-Miller and Davis (1996) follows seven progressive steps: (a) identify the problem, (b) apply the ACA Code of Ethics (2014), (c) determine the nature and dimensions of the dilemma, (d) generate potential courses of action, (e) consider the potential consequences of all options and determine a course of action, (f) evaluate the selected course of action, and (g) implement the course of action.
During this initial session, the client stated she is seeking counseling to "help find herself" due to some concerns she is dealing with in her personal life. When asked "to describe what does finding herself mean" the client was unable to answer. The client struggled to provide her view or a meaning to certain issues she identified as concerns. The counselor then assesses the client's family and her interactions with her family to find a correlation in her family interaction and what changes she wants to make in her personal life. Initial impression from the counselor is the client is aware of herself and her family and what she views as a positive and negative interaction which has or could impact the way she views things now. The client
This paper will discuss how the theories and history of counseling impacted cultural groups. Therefore, it’s important to know the history and theories of counseling when it comes to culturally diverse groups. This knowledge helps understand better the effect and role that each cultural group plays within society. Counselors will be expected to work with culturally diverse groups in a professional and ethical way.
The counseling profession has dealt in the past to prevent harm from clients but not as much as in the present. However, counseling training programs are emphasizing to students in training how to prevent harming a client due to a previous error in ethical judgments. Currently, counselors to this day are dealing with court cases based on making sound ethical judgments. However, some counselors fail to follow ACA and AMHCA due to their religious beliefs which could harm a client through withholding treatment. The ACA and AMHCA Ethical Codes demonstrate not only how counselors can prevent any harm to their clients but also indicates that counselors need to be culturally sensitive. Delgado-Romero, Forrest, and Lau (2012) depict that Ethnic Minority
Social History: The client didn’t really do into her social history but she did touch on the fact she has been married for the last fifteen years and has three children with her husband. She mentions that she is very busy and doesn’t have time to do much for herself with her schedule and raising her children by herself. She did mention that she had a friend that she is going to
After studying the model for making moral decision outlined in Rae (2009), the proposed facts is the patient is an elderly illegal immigrant that is in a comatose state. This patient is without insurance. The patient throughout the portfolio will be referred to as Sue Ellen. Sue Ellen was admitted to this facility with a diagnosis of stroke. This is a patient that currently has a history of liver cancer. The ethical dilemma that is now being faced by the healthcare facility is whether or not Sue Ellen should be removed from the Acute Intensive Care Unit (AICU), so that her current room can be occupied by a revenue producing patients that is coming to the healthcare facility to seek care. The hospital business
The ethical decision making process is based on moral rules and unchanging principles that are derived from reason and can be applied universally. These universal rules and principles must be considered separate from the consequences or the facts of a particular situation. (McWay, 2014). Health care workers face ethical issues and have to use the ethical decision making process to determine what is best for their patients.
Management constitute amongst major components of a company, organization or a business. As such, management oversees employees interactions with their supervisors and also control of people within a particular organization. Also, it includes critical and ethical decision-making process so as to address various ethical dilemmas experienced by employees while undertaking their respective assigned duties within the company. Ethical dilemmas are hereby to stay as issues usually arise now and then and place a variety of options that bear different repercussions. Therefore, it calls for ethical and critical decision-making skills so as to make the most appropriate option that bears more benefits in comparison to other options presented. While making ethical decisions, it 's substantially important to play heed to a certain ethical decision-making theory. This would enable an individual making the decision to ripe best possible consequences rather than living to regret. Moreover, ethical decision making is typically important in business as making a wrong decision may result not only in huge losses but also poor relationship amongst colleagues and miserable life for employee(s) working in a particular company or business in question.
Client reports since he’s been home from the military he and his wife argue often. Client reports the ending result is not resolve; leaving him frustrated and confused; which leads to anger. Client reports unable to control his anger. Client reports he has attempted to rectify the situation by asking his wife on a couple of dates. The client states she turned him down, causing more frustration, anger, and confusion. Client states he has never had therapy prior to coming to this agency. Client states he does not really want to be here, but “if it is the only way to make things the way they were with his wife, he will give it a try.” Client seeks to learn how to re-build a relationship with his wife and no longer wants to fight. Client reports wanting to “feel happy about life again.”
Background: Two staff are seen carrying the old woman and throwing her onto her bed. (YouTube) A nursing home along Braddell Road has been suspended from admitting new patients with effect from 12 April after a patient was reported to have been mistreated. The incident at Nightingale Nursing Home came to light after a video of a patient being mistreated was sent to local broadcaster Mediacorp. The footage was shot by a hidden camera on a patient's bedside. In the video, an elderly woman patient is seen sitting stark naked beside a bed with the room ceiling fans on. She is then picked up by two hospital staff and thrown onto a bed, before a staff is shown slapping her on her mouth when she wailed in pain. Reports say the patient has been a resident there for four years and is suffering from stroke. The Ministry of Health (MOH) said it has suspended the nursing home from admitting new patients from 12 April until further notice. The nursing home has also disciplined the staff involved and put in place additional measures such as ward rounds by senior staff, regular meetings with patients and their family members, and management check on staff conduct and patients In a statement to Yahoo! Singapore, a MOH spokesperson said, investigations into the video recording show "significant lapses in the care standards" to the patient in question. "This should not have happened. There should have been tighter supervision of staff rendering care to vulnerable patients. Patient's dignity
The client is struggling to deal with the semi-recent loss of her husband who passed away in a car crash. Ever since his loss, she has been struggling with depression and although she knows there are people around her who care for her, she struggles believing it. Throughout, this session the client discusses her complete lack of energy and how leaving the house to get up to go to work is difficult enough and she never wants to spend time with her friends like she used to. Every little thing she does is difficult, and she feels disconnected from the rest of the world. The client holds the belief that no one truly understands her situation.
Ethical theories in philosophy are used as decision making tools (Trevino p38), many theories with different frameworks with argument with and against.
We have another psychologist who is trained in Marital Therapy and that’s what she really prefers to do. So we try to send all the ‘couple counselling’ straight through to her. I like to deal with ummm children and with teenagers. So I will deal with those but at the same time we do a variety of things depending on the people who come through at the same time.