ACA Ethical Standards Casebook

Barbara Herlihy, Gerald Corey

• Publisher: American Counseling Association
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781119025382
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

"This practical guide is ideal both for teaching future members of the profession about their ethical responsibilities and for reinforcing ethical competence among current professionals. We strongly recommend this book."

Jeffrey E. Barnett, PsyD, ABPP W. Brad Johnson, PhD

Loyola University Maryland United States Naval Academy

Coauthors, Ethics Desk Reference for Counselors, 2nd Edition

"Herlihy and Corey's text boosts the reader's ethical understanding leaps and bounds above mere reading of the ACA Code of Ethics. With multifaceted case study examples and an integrated approach to tackling ethical dilemmas, this book is a must-read for students, counselors, counselor educators, and supervisors."

Shannon Hodges, PhD Michael Knight

Niagara University Graduate Student, Niagara University

ACA Ethics Revision Task Force Member

The seventh edition of this top-selling text provides a comprehensive resource for understanding the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics and applying its principles to daily practice. Each individual standard of the Code is presented with an explanatory case vignette, and a Study and Discussion Guide is provided at the beginning of each major section of the Code to stimulate thought and discussion. Common ethical concerns, with instructive case studies, are then explored in individual chapters. Topics addressed include client rights and informed consent, social justice and counseling across cultures, confidentiality, counselor competence, working with minor clients, managing boundaries, client harm to self or others, counselor training and supervision, research and publication, and the intersection of ethics and law. Chapters new to this edition examine managing value conflicts and the issues surrounding new technology, social media, and online counseling. The Casebook also contains an Inventory of Attitudes and Beliefs About Ethical Issues to assist counselors in developing a personal ethical stance.

This eighth edition provides a current and comprehensive discussion of counselors' legal and ethical responsibilities, an examination of state and federal laws as they relate to practice, and helpful risk management strategies. Attorney Nancy Wheeler and Burt Bertram, a private practitioner and counselor educator, offer real-world practical tips to help navigate professional risks while providing competent clinical care. New or updated topics include matters surrounding informed consent, current case law on duty to warn/protect and issues surrounding suicide in college/university settings, electronic records and ransomware concerns, and updates on state licensure board data regarding boundary violations. The authors' legal and ethical decision-making model will assist counselors and students with processing their own legal and ethical dilemmas, and the ACA Code of Ethics is included as a handy reference. *Requests for digital versions from ACA can be found on www.wiley.com *To purchase print copies, please visit the ACA website.

*Reproduction requests for material from books published by ACA should be directed to [email protected].

Part I
Introduction

Introduction

Perry C. Francis, Gerald Corey, and Barbara Herlihy

Counselors may rely on the ACA Code of Ethics to guide them in their work without having given much thought to why, when, and how the Code came into being. Students, as well, may learn the Code without realizing that it has a developmental history that spans more than 50 years. Take a moment to reflect on how you would answer these questions:

• Why does the counseling profession need a code of ethics? What purposes does it serve?
• Who created the ACA Code of Ethics?
• Why does the Code change periodically? How often is it revised? Who makes the revisions?
• How can an ethical dilemma best be resolved? What is the best process for ethical decision making?
• How is the ACA Code of Ethics enforced?

Answers to these questions are offered in this introductory section of the Casebook to provide a context for the more detailed examination of the ACA Code of Ethics that follows. We begin with a brief “history lesson” by Perry C. Francis (Chair, 2014 ACA Ethics Revision Taskforce), that illuminates how and when the counseling profession first recognized the need for a formal code of ethics, how it came into existence, and how it has evolved over time. This history will help you gain an appreciation for the extensive process that goes into creating and updating the Code.

Evolution of the ACA Ethical Standards and the Casebook

Perry C. Francis

The creation and continuing revision of a code of ethics are part of the natural development of any profession. A code of ethics is a living document that changes as the profession grows and changes. As the counseling profession has evolved from its early roots in the field of guidance, counselors have developed an increasingly sophisticated understanding of their interactions with clients and the boundaries of those interactions (Herr, 2011). This evolution is reflected in the successive iterations of our ethical standards, which have existed for more than 50 years.

In 1953, Donald Super, then president of the newly formed American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA), recognized that a group of practitioners cannot fully develop into a profession without an established code of ethics (Francis & Dugger, 2014). Super appointed a committee to develop an ethics code for the emerging counseling profession. Eight years later (1961), the first Code of Ethics for the APGA was adopted by its governing body. Shortly after that, in 1963, the APGA Ethics Committee began to collect case examples and incidents that could illustrate the standards of care that were becoming the norm for the practice of the profession. The collected information formed the basis for the first edition of the Ethical Standards Casebook, which was published in 1965.

One constant in our world today is change, and the ACA Code of Ethics is no exception. As society has changed and the counseling profession has responded to those changes and redefined the boundaries of competent practice, the Code of Ethics has also evolved. Including the 1961 Code, the American Counseling Association (ACA) and its previous incarnations (APGA and the American Association for Counseling and Development [AACD]) has had seven different codes of ethics (published in 1961, 1974, 1981, 1988, 1995, 2005a, 2014). Each has reflected the changing nature of society, the growing body of knowledge about counseling, and the changing requirements within the profession. With each subsequent revision also came a revision of the Casebook.

The codes developed by the APGA and AACD from 1961 through 1988 were generic in nature and did not reflect the many specialties that had developed within the profession (such as school, group, and mental health counseling). By 1993, 7 of the 16 ACA divisions (ASCA, ARCA, ASGW, AMHCA, ACPA, ACES, and IAMFC) and two national certification boards (NBCC and CORE) had promulgated their own ethics codes (Herlihy & Remley, 1995), and this proliferation of codes caused confusion among professional counselors and state licensure boards. A new, broader code of ethics was needed that could address the diverse specialties within the field, incorporate the many concerns and standards of each specialty, and include new areas of ethical concern that were not included in the previous codes. The result was the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice (ACA, 1995).

Over time, a pattern developed in which the Code of Ethics and Casebook were being revised about every 7 to 10 years. In 2002 the president of ACA (David Kaplan) appointed Michael M. Kocet as the chair of the 2005 Ethics Revision Taskforce. The taskforce invited ACA members as well as divisions, state licensure boards, and accrediting agencies to give input into the first draft and feedback after the release of this draft. Two town hall meetings ...