Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions

Book excerpt: Up-to-date and challenging, this best-selling text is a practical manual that helps future and current professionals deal with ethical issues that they will confront at the various stages in their development. The authors provide readers with the basis for discovering their own guidelines within the broad limits of professional codes of ethics and divergent theoretical positions. They raise what they consider to be central issues, present a range of diverse views on these issues, discuss their position, and provide readers with many opportunities to refine their own thinking and to actively develop their own position. The authors explore such questions as: What role do the therapist's personal values play in the counseling relationship? What ethical responsibilities and rights do clients and therapists have? What considerations are involved in adapting counseling practice to diverse client populations?