DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE

APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

Week 3: Rights, Responsibilities and

Accountabilities of Counselors

Case Study Analysis

Case 1:
A guidance counselor is counseling a client who has exhibited

some indicators associated with individuals who may be suicidal.

However, the counselor is unsure of whether the student’s behavior

rises to the point that the student should be considered potentially

at risk for suicide and whether to inform the student’s parents. The

counselor decides to confer with another counselor at her school,

one of her former university counselors, and the school guidance

head regarding the situation. Her plan is to follow the consensus of

her peers regarding how she should handle the situation if they all

agree, even if she still has doubts herself.

The counselor did not commit any unethical behavior. Based

on Section B.1.c of the ACA Code of Ethics, counselors must

protect their client's confidential information and only disclose it

with proper consent or ethical justification. In this case, the

counselor refers to another counselor in order to protect himself

from an accusation of wrongdoing after their clinical judgment is

proven faulty. Therefore, what the counselor did, in this case, was

included in the roles and functions of a counselor which is referral

or an act of referring to another counselor in order to apply for

appropriate assistance that the previous counselor cannot provide.

DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE
APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Week 3: Rights, Responsibilities and

Accountabilities of Counselors

Case Study Analysis

Case 2:
A high school counselor in a small rural school is the only counselor

in the school. The counselor’s nephew is a sophomore in the school

and is experiencing emotional distress because he has been the

victim of some recent bullying incidents. The principal asks the

counselor to counsel the student on a weekly basis. Although the

counselor recognizes the problems inherent in counseling a close

relative, she decides to counsel her nephew because she is

convinced he needs help, she suspects he will not receive

counseling if she does not provide it, and she believes she can

assist him in an objective manner. She informs her nephew’s

parents that she will be counseling him, consults with a counselor

in another school on a monthly basis regarding her work with her

nephew, and documents in her case note the content of the

sessions.

The counselor did not commit any unethical behavior. Based

on Section A.6.a of the ACA Code of Ethics, when a counselor

accepts these kinds of clients, he or she takes appropriate

professional precautions such as documentation, supervision,

informed consent, and consultations to guarantee that the

judgment is not impaired nor exploited.

DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE
APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Week 3: Rights, Responsibilities and

Accountabilities of Counselors

Case Study Analysis

Case 3:
A mental health counselor has a client that was a referral to him

for anxiety, mild depression, and being unsatisfied with her job.

After several weeks of counseling sessions, the client opened up

about being confused about her sexuality and confessed to him

that she found some women attractive. Instead of the counselor

helping her figure out her concerns he reacted by telling his client

that he believed that she was immoral and that she should avoid

those thoughts and pray for forgiveness.

The counselor is Imposing his Beliefs on his Client and that is

unethical behavior. The counselor, in this case, forced the client
to have the same beliefs as him which is being attracted to

someone who has a same-sex as you is immoral. In Section C.5. of

the ACA Code of Ethics, Counselors must not be associated with

any discrimination against current clients, students, and employees

against their race, disability, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic

status, religion, gender, or any basis proscribed by law. Lastly,

according to Gerald Corey, if a counselor imposed his values on

his clients, they might face difficulties and it may have an effect on

their work with clients.

DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE
APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Week 3: Rights, Responsibilities and

Accountabilities of Counselors

Reflection

I understand that
Being a counselor requires a lot of time, patience, and

understanding. Counseling is a long process of helping people who

struggle with different kinds of issues. It may involve anxiety,

depression, trauma, or whatever it is, an issue is an issue. It does

not have an age requirement because all of us struggle with those

kinds of issues and counselors are present for us to solve these

issues and put the right judgment onto them. A counselor must act

right and apply ethics to avoid faulty judgments and unethical

behavior. Counseling is a hard profession and let's praise and

thank them for helping and protecting people who struggle from

these issues.

I realized that
Since Psychology is one of the courses that I wanted to take, I

searched for careers that it is offering and one of those is

Counseling. To be honest, I thought counseling was an easy and

boring job but I was wrong. It is somehow an exciting but hard job.

There are a lot of terms to keep in mind and let us not forget to be

calm and collected as always because how can a counselor

handle a confused and unpredictable client if they can't handle

themselves well? Of course, they will result in committing unethical

behavior that should be avoided.