Managing

Multiple
z
Relationships
in Counseling
Practice
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What is Multiple Relationship?

 Multiple relationships are situation in which therapist is engage

with “one or more additional relationship with a client in addition
to the treatment reationship.

 Multiple relationship maybe sexual or non sexual.

 Multiple Relationships are distinguished from incidental

contacts.
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Non Sexual Multiple Relationships may
includes the following:

 Social

 Familial

 Business or Financial Relationships and possibly others

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Ethical Principles of Counseling

 Trustworthy: honouring the trust placed in the practitioner (also

referred to as fidelity).

 Autonomy: respect for the client’s right to be self- governing.

 Beneficence: a commitment to promoting the client’s well-

beingwell-being.

 Non-maleficence: a commitment to avoiding harm to the client.

 Justice: the fair and impartial treatment of all clients and the
provision of adequate services.
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Personal Moral Qualities

 The practitioner’s personal moral qualities are of the utmost

importance to clients.

 Many of the personal qualities considered important in the

provision of services have an ethical or moral component and
are therefore considered as virtues or good personal qualities.
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Personal Moral Qualities

 Emphaty  Humility

 Sincerity  Competence

 Integrity  Wisdom

 Resilience  Fairness

 Courage
 Respect
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Guidance on Good Practice Counseling

 Good quality of care

 Maintaining competent practice

 Keeping trust

 Respecting privacy and confidentiality

 Responsibilities to all clients

 Providing clients with adequate information

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Limitations of Ethical Codes

 Informed Consent

 Confidentiality

 Imposing Values

 Practice and Supervision

 Primum Non Nocere

 Becoming an
Ethical
z
Counselor
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Aim: helping individual to solve their personal problems

Ethics are guidelines that are based on the basic

principles of the counsellor in the code of ethics.
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Therapeutic boundaries are based upon

 Beneficence: A counselor must accept responsibility for

promoting what is good for the client with the expectation that
the client will benefit from the counseling sessions.

 Nonmaleficence: "doing no harm". The counselor must avoid at

all times, (even inadvertently) any activities or situations with the
client that could cause a conflict of interest.

 Autonomy: The counsellor's ethical responsibility to encourage

client independent thinking and decision- making, and to deter
all forms of client dependency.
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 Therapeutic relationships are unbalanced (Who has more

power?)

 Therapeutic relationships are complicated

 Client’s issues/problems are complicated

 The nature of the relationship itself is complicated

 Therapists are human, and humans are fallible. Ethical

guidelines provide guidance and accountability
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Ethical codes are guidelines for what therapists can and cannot do
that have been developed by each therapeutic discipline’s
organizational body, including the ACA & APA.

There are two dimensions to ethical decision making:

1. Principle ethics: Overt ethical obligations that must be

addressed

2. Virtue ethics: counselors behave and think in ways that are

morally and ethically appropriate in all situations