Counseling-related Issues

Presented by: Endang Fourianalistyawati

Prepared by: Chandradewi Kusristanti, M.Psi., Psikolog

 • Ethics
• Attitudes expected from an effective

Outline counselor
• Things to anticipate in helping
professions
• Dealing with various clients
ETHICS
Your guidelines in being a counselor.
 Importance of Ethics in
Counseling
• Patterson (1971) has observed that
counselors professional identity is
related to their knowledge and practice
of ethics
• Welfel (2016) has added that the
effectiveness of counselors is
connected to their ethical knowledge
and behavior as well
• Some forms of unethical behavior are
obvious and willful, whereas others are
more subtle and unintentional >> the
harmful outcome is the same
 General Ethical
Guidelines

Respecting Being aware

Confidentiality
differences of yourself

Avoiding Maintaining
conflicts of appropriate
interest boundaries
 General Principles of
Psychologists & Code of
Conduct - APA
Principle A: Beneficence & Nonmaleficence

Principle B: Fidelity & Responsibility

Principle C: Integrity

Principle D: Justice

Principle E: Respect for People’s Rights & Dignity

 • Violation of confidentiality
• Exceeding one’s level of professional competence

Forms of • Negligent practice

• Claiming expertise one does not possess

Unethical • Imposing one’s values on a client

• Creating dependency in a client

Behaviors • Sexual activity with a client

• Certain conflicts of interest, such as dual or multiple
relationships—in which the role of the counselor is combined

in with another relationship (either personal or professional) and

not monitored for appropriateness of boundaries (Hermann,
2011a; Moleski & Kiselica, 2005)

Counseling
(American Counseling Association, 2014)
• Questionable financial arrangements, such as charging
excessive fees
• Improper advertising
• Plagiarism
ATTITUDES
Several attitudes expected from (effective) helpers.
 • Focusing on the strengths, abilities,
and resources that individuals, couples,
families, groups, and communities
possess, rather than concentrating only
1. Strength on weaknesses, deficits, or barriers, is a
vital principle in human services work
Perspective • An effective helper will take the
perspective of catching persons doing
something right and then comment on
that strength or success, rather than
catching them doing something wrong
• Remember the old adage about the water
glass being half empty or half full?  some
people choose to focus either on the empty
part or the full part rather than seeing the
whole picture
• Persons who are troubled or in crisis usually
have no difficulty recognizing their barriers
and failures; it is the helper’s job to assist
them with identifying the successes and
strengths as well
• Frequently, a helper can identify a strength that the client
never realized he/ she possessed
• On the contrary, when helper emphasizes shortcomings of
the clients, this tends to further convince them that they’re
inadequate and further robs them of self-confidence
• Remember, the strengths we identify should be genuine
• Focusing on strengths also doesn’t mean ignoring,
discounting, or invalidating the real challenges they’re
facing
• Strength-focus perspective is another way of viewing reality,
a way of putting on another set of lenses that allows you to
identify the functional characteristics and components in
someone’s life
“Seeing the best in people is a skill that will be useful to you in all your helping work”
(Poindexter & Valentine, 2007)
 Reflection #1
o What are your strengths and
weaknesses?
o How can your strengths help you through
difficult times?
o What can you do to improve your
weaknesses?
o What about your significant others’
strengths and weaknesses?
o Does knowing their strengths and
weaknesses help you to understand them
better? How?
 • Helpers shouldn’t communicate negative
judgments, remember: people cope and
manage in different ways

2. • Effective helpers provide a safe,

nonjudgmental space where others are led
gently through feelings and thoughts
Suspending • Helpers should listen with compassion to

Judgment many ways of coping WITHOUT making

judgments
• It is important to honor and validate all
feelings, even when they’re difficult to hear
or accept
Picture source: azquotes.com:
 Reflection #2
o Have there been times when you
have felt that you were unable to
offer support and respect to others
because of decisions they’ve made?
o Think of ways that those decisions
might make sense if you were in the
other’s position. Let’s learn to
empathize and put yourself in their
shoes.
 • This concept means that after providing
3. client with the necessary information and
listening to the person express his/ her own

Supporting views of the problem, helpers must

support the his/ her right to choose a
course of action IF it doesn’t harm
Informed another person
• The most useful helping relationship
Choice supports the person’s autonomy and right to
make choices
• Remember that although we can express care and
concern to those who ask for our services, we can’t force
them to behave in certain ways  make sure that
you’re able to remove judgments in the helping process
• However, it is sometimes useful to state clearly and
nonjudgmentally how you view a situation  it is the
safest to do when the helping relationship is a strong and
long-lasting one
 [Tip]

When your views (as counselor) are expressed in a

concerned, loving way, clients are most likely to be able
to accept them without being unduly influenced by them
and will be able to better understand how their behavior
may be affecting the people around them
 Reflection #3
o Have you ever made a decision with
which some significant persons in your
life didn’t agree?
o How did they respond to you?
o What types of responses were you
wishing for?
o Can you understand their response
better now?
 “Stick and bones may break my bones, but
words will never hurt me.”

• Helpers who want to gain the trust of persons

4. Using seeking help must learn the terms and labels
that others find acceptable
Appropriate • Even if harm isn’t intended, it can occur
through a careless word that’s taken as an
Language insult
• Language used by helpers is a powerful way
to communicate our attitudes about persons
who ask for help
 • Understand this: Genuine caring can’t
5. Honest, be faked, and it’s shown!
Genuine, • Being genuine means being ourselves
but without letting our agendas and our
Authentic, personalities dominate the helping
interview or relationship
& • Genuine sometimes called as
Trustworthy ‘congruence’
• When clients are experiencing extreme emotional
vulnerability, helpers may be tempted to comfort them by
leaving out bad news or exaggerating the positives  don’t!
• It’s important to balance reality with hope; to balance bad
news with support
• It is important for helpers to acknowledge clients’ feelings,
even if they’re painful, in a sensitive or caring way
• Although persons in crisis frequently need information and
direction, helpers shouldn’t try to represent themselves as
experts
• If you don’t know, say so, and then work hard to find the
information for them or refer them to someone who can help
• Part of being genuine helper is to be committed to working
on one’s own growth
 FATIGUE,
BURNOUT, & BIAS

Things you should anticipate as a helper.

 Compassion Fatigue
• Indifference and apathy to those
who are suffering, as a result of
frequent or overexposure to people
in need (Gladding, 2018)
• It is characterized as an inability to
react empathetically to a crisis or
need situation
 Burnout
• Those who have burnout describe it
as a state of being emotionally or
physically drained to the point that
one cannot perform functions
meaningfully
• Burnout may exist simultaneously
with compassion fatigue
Reasons Why Counselors
Experiencing Compassion
Fatigue and Burnout

• Too much work and not enough downtime, hobbies,

distractions, or other activities outside of counseling
• Helpers often feel physically exhausted and emotionally
spent as well
• Helpers need to modify environmental as well as individual
and interpersonal factors associated with these conditions
(Wilkerson & Bellini, 2006)
 What Are the Signs?

Please read:
Compassion Fatigue Signs (source: WebMD)
• https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-compassion-f
atigue
Burnout Symptoms and Signs (source: WebMD)
• https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/burnout-symptoms-
signs
 Reflection #4
o What do you do that invigorates
or refreshes you or that you
enjoy?
o What other activities or hobbies
would you like to include in your
life? What keeps you from doing
so? How might you get around
any real or potential barriers?
Please understand that practicing self-care is important,
otherwise…
Picture source: Pinterest.com
Picture source:
thelilyjoproject.com
 Bias
• Bias in helper takes many forms, usually related to clients’
spirituality, sexuality, ethnicity, etc
• Bias ranges from misinformed opinion to beliefs or values
• It should be addressed, because it limits the helper’s
capacity to relate to their client as a whole
• Helper needs to accept as a human being, he/ she has bias
too
 Do you want to
know your bias?

You may take Harvard Implicit Association Test

implicit.harvard.edu
DEALING WITH
VARIOUS
CLIENTS
1. Elderly Clients
Counseling Elderly
Populations
• Remember the developmental task of late adulthood according to Erikson?
• Historically, counseling older adults has been a neglected area of the
counseling profession (Muzacz & Akinsulure-Smith, 2013)
• Major problems of the aged include loneliness, physical illness, retirement,
idleness, bereavement, and abuse (Morrissey, 1998; Piercy, 2010; Williams,
Ballard, & Alessi, 2005)
• Mental health considerations: Depression, dementia, and suicide (McBride &
Hays, 2012)
• Special case: domestic elder abuse >> any form of maltreatment by someone
who has a special relationship with the elderly (Morrissey, 1998)
 Reasons Counselors Give
for Not Working with Elderly

• Not understanding older adults

• Investment syndrome >> a feeling that is better to work with
younger persons who will contribute more to society in the long run
• Irrational fear of aging
• Problems older adults have (e.g. depression), are attributed to old
age and not seen as a part of life
2. Helping Survivors of
Disaster
 Natural Disasters
Survivors
• People generally see these types of disasters as unavoidable and
typically are better able to cope with such events than with those that can
be blamed on human actions
• For some people, it may be comforting to see these types of events as
the acts of a “higher power,” whereas for others, such events may make
the world seem to be a dangerous and unpredictable place (Yates, 1998)
• Every disaster has an impact phase, but it is important to recognize that
this phase may continue long after the event itself is over (e.g., survivors
live in tents for months following a hurricane)
Individual Reactions
to Traumatic Stress
• Persons exposed to traumatic events may experience the effects in all domains
of their lives:
Emotional, (e.g denial, anger, anxiety, sadness, etc)
Cognitive (e.g disorientation, inability to stop thinking about the event, etc)
Behavioral (e.g changes in sleep & appetite, difficulty communicating,
hypervigilance about safety, etc)
Physiological (e.g increase in heartbeats, nausea, fatigue, etc)
Spiritual (e.g ‘crises of faith’, seeing the disasters as punishment, etc)
• There is no specific order to what emotions people might experience, and there
is no “normal” pattern of reactions
 Universal Effects
(Pedersen, et al., 2015)

• The following reactions to disaster are common across all people, regardless of
culture:
■ Sleep disturbances, often including nightmares and imagery from the traumatic
event
■ Concerns about relocation and the related isolation or crowded living conditions
■ A need to talk about events and feelings associated with the disaster (often
repeatedly)
■ A need to feel one is part of the community and its recovery efforts
3. Counseling Low-Income
Clients
 Client’s
Perspective
• Considerable research has found that individuals from low-income
backgrounds are less likely to seek formal mental health services
(Levy & O’hara, 2010)
• Such barriers include, but are not limited to, logistical problems like
transportation and child care, perceived stigma and mistrust in the
mental health care system, and cultural differences in help-seeking
(Goodman et al., 2010; Krupnick & Melnikoff, 2011; Levy & O’hara,
2010)
 Counselor’s
Perspective
• Assumption that low-income clients will not benefit from
psychotherapy and would instead respond to more immediate
material and practical help (Smith, 2005; 2009)
• Feeling overwhelmed and helpless when confronted with some of
clients’ often bleak circumstances (Smith, 2005)
• Sometimes, there is an uneasy discomfort or unconscious fears that
result from witnessing the pain and suffering produced by economic
disparities
 • Gladding, S. T. (2018). Counseling: A
Comprehensive Profession. New Jersey:
Pearson Education, Inc.
• Kim, S. & Cardemil, E. (2012). Effective
psychotherapy with low-income clients: The
importance of attending to social class. J
Contemp Psychother, 42 (1), 27 – 35.
References • Pedersen, P. B., Lonner, W. J., Draguns, J.
G., Trimble, J. E., & Rio, M. R. S. (2016).
Counseling Across Cultures (7th ed.).
California: Sage.
• Poindexter, C. C. & Valentine, D. P. (2007).
An Introduction to Human Services: Values,
Methods, and Populations Served (2nd ed.).
Belmont: Thomson Higher Education.
Thank you!
Any questions?