ethical issues in counseling practice.

putting clients need before your own

i do not think that as counselors we can keep our personal needs completely separate from our
relationships with clients. ethically, it is essential that we become aware of our own needs, areas
of unfinished business, potential personal conflicts, and defenses, we need to realize how such
factors could interfere with helping our clients.
our professional relationship with our clients exist for their benefit. A useful question to
frequently ask yourself is this : "whose needs are being meet in this relationship, my client's or
my own ?" it take considerable profesdional maturity to make an honest appraisal of your
behavior and its impact on clients. i do not thing it is unethical that these needs be kept in
perspective. For me, the ethical issue exist when we meet our needs, in either obvi avoid
exploiting clients.
what kind of awareness is crucial ? We all have certain blind spots and distortions of reality. As
helping professionals, we have responssibilities to work activelly toward expanding our own self
awareness and to lern to recognize areas of prejudice and vulnerability.if we are aware of our
personal problems and are willing to work them through, there is less chance that we will project
them onto clients. If certain areas of strugle surface and old conflicts become reactivated, we have
an ethichal obligation to seek our own therapy so that we will be able to assist clients in
confronting these same struggles.
We must also examine other, less obviously harmful