Running head: DISCIPLINE 1

Ethical Violations and Board Discipline

Name

Institution
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Ethical Violations and Board Discipline

Counselors in various states usually find themselves being punished by the Discipline

Board for violating certain values. By looking at the state of Georgia’s board for disciplining

counselors, it is clear that there are common grounds for punishing counselors. One of these is

due to counselors having relationships with clients. The board considers clients to be vulnerable

individuals who need as much help as possible. As such, whenever a counselor develops sexual

relationships with a client, the board views this as the counselor taking advantage of the client.

Another important reason that can lead to punishment of a counselor is disclosure of the client’s

personal information. I agree with these steps because the client should be protected at all times.

From the examination of all the reasons for punishment, it is clear that the most common reasons

for discipline include incompetence, sexual relationships with clients, misrepresentation,

inappropriate fee assessment, and breach of confidentiality. Failure to obtain consent from clients

is also another common reason for discipline that the boards take seriously in regards to

counselors.

In one of the cases of punishments recently, Georgia state board was forced to take

remedial action on a therapist who failed to provide proper management to a client. The client

alleged that the therapist asked her to name all the people she had crushed on before, and upon

turning in the list, the counselor insulted her for not having added him as one of the people she

had a crushed on. The counselor had also made the client to feel unworthy by telling her that she

would be nowhere without him. This led the client to feel useless and fell into depression. The

client reports that she almost committed suicide because of it. The code that the counselor

violated is one of treating clients with respect. The board cancelled the counselor’s practicing

license. Counselor impairment occurs when the counselor is not in a position to provide services
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to clients (Ebrahimian & Saed, 2018). This can happen in cases of depression to the counselor. A

question I have on this is: “what measures have been put in place by various state boards to

ensure that counselors also have necessary support systems?”

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Reference

Ebrahimian, S., & Saed, O. (2018). Professional Code of Ethics of Psychologists in Iran, United

States and Germany: A Comparative Study. Medical Ethics Journal, 12(43), 1-13.