Homework Lance
Conflict of Interest and Self-Care
Grand Canyon University: MHW-649
In any professional filed there would always be some conflict of interest issue at some point and the mental health filed is no exception. For instance, if a counselor happens to be the only counselor in a small town, and her neighbor’s daughter comes to her because she needs help. The daughter is suffering from depression and she use sex as a gateway to cope with her disorder and she does it unprotected with multiple partners. Now, as her counselor and her neighbors as well it will be a conflict of interest on the part of counselors because of patient confidentiality and privacy right, the counselor can not inform the mother because client is not in any eminent danger. However, because they are neighbors, the counselor might think of telling the mother about her daughter’s promiscuous behavior and that will be a conflict of interest. Another example would be when a therapist has someone who she had be in a romantic relationship with, in the past as a client. The therapist will end up making decision based on her values and since she had some relationship with him, she might be judgmental based on their past. According to ACA, (2012) the professional must make decision based on their own personal values (ACA, 2012).
It is important for the health practitioner to take care of their mental health state before they can help other individuals. A mental practitioner who do not take care of their physical mental and spiritual needs would not be in a good state to take care of other individual’s who are suffering from mental health disorders. On the other hand, most professional are acquainted with self-care, even when educating their client on the importance of self -care, and realized that they lack the principles of self-care, some may find it difficult to incorporate it during service delivery. Because of the nature of the mental health professional’s job, most pretend that they have answers to all problems and can handle any pressure and challenges that they may face. However, professional get burnt out most of the time due to lack of self-care and the workload, before they seek help themselves or adapt a better self-care strategy.
Maintaining a healthy balance wellness dimensions is very important throughout the professional’s careerjourney. Most client that the professionals serve are usually individuals who had experienced some traumatic event in their lifetime, so the professional must show empathy to all clients. Professional must also be compassionate, caring, loving and above all be understanding towards all clients and their families. The safety of all clients must also be a priority, however the relationship between the professional and client must be nothing other than a client/counselor relationship.The mental health field can be very stressful at times so the professional must find ways to deal with stress so that he or she can effectively execute the duties that had been assigned to (Shallcross, 2011). As a mental health professional with a Christian background it is my job, my vow and my responsibility to honor the Golden rule at all time. As a human, there may be times when I will be faced with different diverse worldviews, but I can overcome it by prayers and putting God first and asking Him to lead me in the justice, fair and the right path for my clients. As professionals, we are entrusted with so much responsibilities, and that we must conduct ourselves according to the standard that prohibit as from providing services that we ourselves needs. Moreover, mental health professionals must not provide services if their own mental health needs are not addressed or treated because it can block their capacity of effectively helping their clients (Vietze, et al, 2017).
Ethical dilemma is very common in the mental health profession. So, professionals ought to have strategy that would help them to minimize risk and situations that wouldcompromisetheir professional ethical responsibilities. For instance, the client needs must always be a priority. The professional must also set a clear boundary with all clients and coworkers. Must also follow the professional code of ethics of the American Counseling Association when making any ethical decision. In other to stay competent, the professional must only provide services that they have been trained on and have the necessary credentials for. Again, the professional must not rush to judgement, but rather find out as much as he or she can on issues at hand or even talk to a supervisor to see if they have ever been in the same situation and how they handled it before making any decision. Above all the professional must identify all ethical principles at hand as well as emotions when approaching an ethical dilemma.
Reference:
American Counseling Association. (2005) Code of Ethics. Retrieved from
https://www.counseling.org/Resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf
Shallcross, L. (2011). Counseling Today: A Publication of the America Counseling
Association. Taking care of yourself as a counselor. Retrieved from
https://ct.counseling.org/2011/01/taking-care-of-yourself-as-a-counselor/
Vietze, D.L., Jones, J. M., Dovidio, J. F., Sommerss-Flanagan, J., et al. (2005). Ethics
and cultural diversity in mental health and wellness. Retrieved from
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