Dr. Dee Ethical Issues

In order to implement the course of action to terminate with Anthony in an ethical way, Dr. Dee decides to provide pretermination counseling over the period of the next few weeks in order to ease his transition. Firstly, during these sessions she notifies him that she feels he would be better suited to address his substance abuse concerns with a psychologist who specializes in the treatment of substance use disorders. Next, she provides him with a referral to a psychologist specializing in substance use disorders and assists him in setting up an initial session. Dr. Dee decides she will continue to see Anthony until he attends the initial session with the new psychologists. During this time she continues to address his concerns (e.g., abandonment,

Dee could have made many unethical and immoral decisions in regards to the dilemma. For example, upon making the connection to Isabelle during Anthony’s session, Dr. Dee could have disregarded the information or even hid her discovery from her supervisors and continued treating both clients separately as she had previously done. This would have been a bad decision due to the reasonable possibility that the clients may be harmed as a result of her inability to stay objective towards them both, thus leading to a deficit in Dr. Dee’s professional competency and effectiveness in their treatment. Another decision Dr. Dee could have made was to take into consideration the connection between the clients, continue to see them both, but schedule them on different days . Surely this decision could have prevented the clients from unexpectedly seeing each other in Dr. Dee’s practice at the same time, however, unintentional confidential disclosures could happen during sessions and cause harm for the clients. Additionally, Dr. Dee’s objectivity and conflicts of interest could hinder the effectiveness of the therapy with Isabelle and Anthony. Another alternative decision Dr. Dee could have made was to notify Isabelle and Anthony that the other was in therapy and request a suggestion of how to move forward in therapy. Undoubtedly, telling both clients about the other would have been a breach of confidentiality, which is clearly unethical according to Code 4.01. As the last example of an alternative resolution, Dr. Dee could have terminated with both clients. Ethically, this decision does not seem to blatantly violate the Ethics Codes. However, by terminating with both clients, she disregards the benefits of keeping one client. In this case, Isabelle’s established rapport with the Dr. Dee and considerable progress in therapy has been discounted and could lead her to experience harm as a result of feelings of abandonment and anger due to termination. As a result, the