Upon review of an article Legal and Ethical Implications of
Refusing to Counsel Homosexual Clients by Hermann and Herlihy(2006), I
imagine myself supervising a new counselor. The counselor says that she
does not want to work with a client who has just stated he wants to come out as
"gay" to his family. She has stated that she has religious concerns
about working with the client ethically.
From a supervisor's role, this is how I would respond to the counselor using ethical and legal guidelines. Use proper instructions specific to your state or use the court's mandate. The principle of beneficence is embodied in counselors’ commitment to keeping client welfare first and foremost (Hermann & Herlihy 2006). The text is straightforward of saying that counseling should not be our profession if we intend to classify our clients based on our moral principles or for example our belief that lesbian is wrong and should not be given the proper counseling. To the contrary, the more we should counsel our clients, and our goal should be to treat everyone with dignity and respect whatever belief system or values they have.
The text depicts that our
obligation is the welfare of our clients first and foremost. Our
ethical values or beliefs should not impede our decision of denying or sway our
counseling towards the clients based on our principles or morals. This will not only lead to the danger of our
client’s safety or welfare but lawsuits and termination of our job as
counselors.
To avoid finding themselves in
situations like Bruff’s, these counselors might choose to work in settings that
are compatible with their values and advertise these values to potential
consumers of counseling services. If it is not possible to work in a consistent environment,
these counselors have an ethical duty to avoid harm to clients by ensuring that
counselors’ informed consent procedures provide potential clients with adequate
information about the counselor's values (Hermann & Herlihy 2006).
As the supervisor, my role will be to coach
everyone about the equal handling of
client’s issues, and never that sexual
orientation will be considered unless it is the issue that the client wants
counseling on. My priority is
to empower my counselors so that they can enable
the clients who need to overcome some of the pervasive coercion of the society. To
be biased with the client is double jeopardy and the unkindest attitude
that a counselor can do to the client.
Applying social empowerment strategies when working with such clientele is one strategy that may prove successful in facilitating the reclamation of individual and community power, self-advocacy, and the ability to rise above those factors inhibiting a person's effort to control her or his life. Overcoming some of the more pervasive societal-level forms of oppression (e.g., heterosexism) poses, perhaps, a more daunting challenge for the lesbian and gay male community but may become more of a realistic possibility when empowerment and demarginalization occur at the level of the individual (Savage, Harley, and Nowak, 2005).
My POSTSCRIPTS
Imagine the amount of damage done
when the client feels rejected by the one person they felt would be impartial
and supportive of them. That is why many of the gay community would rather go to a gay
counselor or someone they know for sure values their values. Community, or collective, empowerment is one
way for lesbians and gay males to support and help each other deal with
distress politically as a group (R. E. Perkins, 1996).
We learn to open our minds to the difficulties
and unkind treatment of societies especially to minorities like the lesbian
community. This field is the beginning of preventing another Bruff
issue in the field of counseling.
Those interventions aimed at
counselors themselves or the type of activities used with gay
and lesbian career counseling clients must either be
learned during graduate school education or through continuing professional
development at conferences or workshops. Interventions directed at institutions
or programs and at social/community action have implications for school-based
career education programs, career planning texts used in colleges and
universities, and occupational information (Pope, et. al., 2004)
Hermann, M., & Herlihy, B.
(2006, Fall2006). Legal and Ethical Implications of Refusing to Counsel
Homosexual Clients. Journal of Counseling & Development, 84(4),
414-418. Retrieved June 1, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.
Perkins, D. D., & Zimmerman, M. A.
(1995). Empowerment theory: Research and applications. American Journal of
Community Psychology, 23, 569-579.
Pope,
M., Barret, B., Szymanski, D. Chung, B., Singaravelu, H.,
McLean, R. and Sanabria, S. (Dec. 2004). Culturally appropriate
career counseling with gay and lesbian clients. Career Development
Quarterly 53.2 (Dec 2004): 158(20). Academic OneFile. Gale. US
Navy General Lib - Bremerton. 2 June 2009
Savage,
T., Harley, D., and Nowak T.(2005). Applying social empowerment strategies as
tools for self-advocacy in counseling lesbian and gay male clients"
Journal of Counseling and Development 83.2 (Spring 2005): 131(7). Academic
OneFile. Gale. US Navy General Lib - Bremerton. 1 June 2009
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