As counselors know, the ethical and legal requirement of the “duty to warn” has been adopted as a standard of care across many helping professions. It probably represents one of the most universal elements of counseling ethics regardless of cultural or national identity. Based on the Hippocratic notion of “first,

Given that I thought I’d cultivated my listening skills, it was uncharacteristic of me to so abruptly interrupt a patient who felt compelled to plead his court case of a criminal charge in group therapy. We in group, of course, were experiencing the very common occurrence of denial. As part

  “Counselors do not condone or engage in discrimination against prospective or current clients, students, employees, supervisees or research participants based on age, culture, disability, ethnicity, race, religion/spirituality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital/partnership status, language preference, socioeconomic status, immigration status or any basis proscribed by law.”   The above

The 2014 ACA Code of Ethics was approved by the ACA Governing Council this week at its meeting at the ACA conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. The 2014 ACA Code of Ethics replaces the 2005 edition.  The new edition is the first code that speaks to the ethics of using social

In December, after years of litigation, the court case Julea Ward v. Board of Regents of Eastern Michigan University was resolved. The resolution upheld the university counseling program’s policies and confirmed the ACA Code of Ethics as the guide for defining ethical behavior for professional counselors. The case also reiterated

Bioethics is the multidisciplinary field that applies knowledge of health care policy, law, philosophy, sociology and dispute mediation/resolution to solve moral dilemmas in clinical practice and research in medicine and allied professions. Human cloning and stem cell research, which are hotly debated in society, are examples of bioethical issues. Beginning

As counselors, we recognize the importance of ethics, so much so that it is a required component of our training. Particularly in our current social climate, with issues such as personal values versus counselor competencies being debated in U.S. court systems, it is crucial for students to prepare to be ethical

Robotic counselors. Virtual solutions. Personality uploading. These are not science fiction fantasies but real possibilities that lie just beyond the horizon for the field of counseling. According to some futurists, a trend of great historical magnitude is unfolding: the exponential growth of technological development leading to an event referred to as

When the American Counseling Association last completed and released a revised version of its Code of Ethics in October 2005, issues of multiculturalism and diversity received special focus because they were increasingly coming to the forefront of counseling practice but had not been addressed in much depth in previous versions